Page:The advancement of science by experimental research - the Harveian oration, delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, June 27th, 1883 (IA b24869958).pdf/47

 and especially on living animals that the important discoveries on the nervous system have been fully established; hut very little was known of the difference between the motor and sensory fibres of the spinal cord before the observations of Sir Charles Bell; the truths that he made out were due to experiment, for when he rested on mere reasoning his deductions failed; but the facts he did establish have wonderfully assisted in the right understanding of disease, and they have been of the greatest value. I need not refer to Marshall Hall, to Duchenne, to Brown Sequard, Hughlings Jackson, and to many others; but the more recent investigations of Dr. Perrier, also connected with the nervous system, and the localization of cerebral function have been and will be of increasing value in rendering the knowledge of disease more accurate and in leading to correct diagnosis and treatment.

An illustration of the value of study of the kind just mentioned is well shewn in the pathological investigations connected with tubercle. The subject is one replete