Page:The Harveian oration 1903.djvu/37

 knowledge any physiological deductions whatever. After pointing out a number of cases in which he shows that adequate anatomical knowledge is wanting, he says, "whence you may guess how little trust is to be put in explanations based on such a futile foundation. . . . I have said nothing of the use of parts, nothing of the actions which we call animal, since it is impossible to explain the movements carried out by a machine, so long as we remain ignorant of the structure of its parts."

It was only very gradually that this ignorance was cleared up, and pending that the progress of Neurology was hindered by the mystical speculations of successive metaphysical doctrines. Until the discovery of the nerve cells and their connection with the fibres was made in the fourth decade of the last century, no very sound notions on nervous function were possible.

Slowly, and with many throw-backs as Physiology emerged from obscurity and became established on a scientific basis, the correlative subject of Pathology long lagged behind in taking up a similar position. The reluctance, as it were, to regard morbid processes in the same manner as those manifested by a healthy organism was no doubt in part responsible for the delay in