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Latent  Power  in  the  Laboratory. 
Am.  Jour.  PJiarm. 
July,  1904. 
it  may  be,  and  isolated  from  the  centres  of  knowledge ;  what  truer 
safeguard  can  he  have  against  all  the  pseudoscientific  quackeries  of 
the  day  than  some  real  knowledge  of  the  principles  of  the  sciences 
along  whose  lines  the  discoveries  of  medicine  must  develop?"  And 
we  may  ask  ourselves  the  question :  Is  there  any  one  science  to-day 
which  promises  more  aid  (direct  and  indirect)  to  the  science  and  art 
of  medicine  than  physiological  chemistry?  Surely,  we  have  not 
only  the  promise,  but  the  fulfilment  of  the  promise,  in  the  many  dis- 
coveries which  have  come  of  late  years  from  the  various  laboratories 
of  physiological  chemistry  scattered  throughout  the  world,  and  if 
we  grant  the  truth  of  this  contention,  then  certainly  we  must  admit 
that  physiological  chemistry  is  destined  to  play  an  important  part 
in  the  development  of  medical  education,  since  it  is  adding  continu- 
ally new  discoveries  which  bear  directly  upon  our  knowledge  of 
physiological  and  pathological  processes,  as  well  as  discoveries  which 
bear  directly  upon  the  art  of  medicine.  Surely,  there  can  be  no 
clear  or  profound  knowledge  of  abnormal  or  pathological  processes 
without  a  thorough  understanding  of  the  normal  processes  of  the 
body.  The  physiological  must  be  clearly  comprehended  before  we 
can  intelligently  unravel  the  pathological,  and  at  almost  every  turn 
in  physiology — in  the  study  of  normal  function — we  come  in  contact 
with  some  phase  of  physiological  chemistry.  The  chemical  pro- 
cesses of  the  body  are  indeed  manifold,  and  it  would  be  a  one-sided 
physiology  that  attempted  to  explain  the  processes  of  the  body 
without  recourse  to  the  aid  furnished  by  physiological  chemistry. 
The  laboratories  of  physiological  chemistry  have  indeed  been 
fruitful  sources  of  knowledge.  In  them,  under  the  guidance  of 
masters  of  their  science,  truths  have  been  demonstrated  that  have 
contributed  no  small  share  to  the  development  of  modern  scientific 
medicine,  and  the  development  of  medical  education  has  been  in- 
fluenced in  no  small  degree  by  the  brilliant  discoveries  that  have 
been  inspired  by  the  master  minds  of  this  particular  science. 
Consider,  by  way  of  illustration,  the  Strassburg  Laboratory  of 
Physiological  Chemistry  during  the  active  life  of  Felix  Hoppe-Seyler. 
Coming  to  Strassburg  from  Tubingen,  in  1872,  Hoppe-Seyler 
gradually  created  there  an  institute  which  attracted  students  from 
all  parts  of  the  world,  and  up  to  the  time  of  his  death,  in  1895, 
there  was  a  never-ending  series  of  important  papers  in  physiologi- 
