Page:The Harveian oration ; delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, June 26th, 1879 (IA b24976465).pdf/15

 study of the two branches must be pursued together, for the very derangement of parts gives a clue to their uses. I say that the daily task of the physician is one of physiological investigation, as well as the treatment of discase; for while affording relief to the sufferer who has sought his aid, he yet makes use of the opportunity to watch the effects of the quickened revolution of the wheels, of the stiffened valves, or the changes in the fluids which are circulating through the tubes of the animal machinery. I remember some years ago a meeting of physiologists was called, I believe in Germany, to discuss the propriety of altogether divorcing their subject from medicine, but it was found that the attempt was impossible, for though it be true that physiology may be studied apart from any connection with our medical art, yet the chief of all animals, man, in whom the greatest scientific interest centres, is so prominently placed in his disordered states before the physician, that the experience of the latter cannot but assist in the work of the physiologist. Moreover, in the application of his art in the use of drugs, many interesting and important facts are acquired bearing on the