Page:The Harveian oration ; delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, June 26th, 1879 (IA b24976465).pdf/16

 function of the organism. Just as the pure physiologist makos experiments in his laboratory in order to discover the function of some portion of the animal economy, so the physician has ever placed before him similar experiments made by accident or disease. I should be sorry to be obliged to venture an opinion as to whether the physiologist has more assisted the physician or the physician the physiologist in the elucidation of many obscure phenomena observed in the human subject.

Every one who is pursuing his professional avocations in a scientific spirit knows how large a part of the questions which he is obliged to discuss, and often unwillingly, are physiological. For example, a person is seized with paralysis of a certain kind, and we immediately ask ourselves where is the seat of the lesion. Now, if the physiologist had prepared the way we should long have left these questions behind us, and confined ourselves solely to the nature of the disease and its treatment; at present, however, we are assisting in his work. If the case be one of so ordinary a complaint as jaundice, our inquiry has not only reference to the disease, but to the causes which have made bile appear in the blood-a question only