Page:The Harveian oration 1912.djvu/11

Rh pathologist as he was, foresaw, or at any rate had some ideas about, what the histology of the future was to tell? The book itself had its leaves uncut; but could such a mind as that altogether still the passion of the seer? He saw and taught that the knowledge of the skeletal tissues must come first; that this would open up some of the more pronounced changes of morbid anatomy, and their association with certain signs and symptoms of disease. Next, as opportunity developed, would come an inquiry into the minute structure of the normal tissues, and not till then would it be possible to interpret those finer alterations present in disease or gain any appreciable knowledge of the subtleties of function. Such is, indeed, a sequence of events that has actually come about, and with which we are all familiar.

Within the short span of our own lives this is true for our own time, so let me dwell to-day on our earlier pathology, trace it as now, and prospect its future.

And no more pertinent introduction could I take than the history of the growth of our knowledge of malignant tumours.

Years ago, when the scientific world was pulsating under the influence of the master mind of Virchow and of his Cellular Pathology, many of you, my learned colleagues, kindly here to-day, were hard at work studying and describing the features of morbid growths, and trying to obtain an insight from the histological appearances of how, and perhaps why, they came.

And let me here recall en parenthèse what entrancing days those were. I have often heard a doubt expressed about the value of histological