Page:The healing art in its historic and prophetic aspects - the Harveian oration delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, Oct. 19, 1885 (IA b21908199).pdf/24

 late Sir Robert Carswell, the first pathologist of his day, whose drawings of morbid appearances remain a monument of accuracy and skill, never used a microscope in his course of lectures, and that his only reference to microscopic ap- pearances was to mention that pus consists of a clear fluid and globules-some idea may be formed of the change which has taken place.

And now during a few moments let me indicate to you the direction in which this change has been effected, seek- occurred. ing meanwhile if we can find therein data which may any help us to reply to my second question, What are our hopes for the future? Clearly the direction was towards a better comprehension of the nature of life, and inferen- tially of disease; together with a more accurate knowledge of the body both in its structure and its functions. The halt to which observers had come was largely compelled by limited methods of experiment; and it is particularly to improvement in the methods and instruments of research that much of our advance is to be attributed, as it is also from such improvement that still more is to be expected.

First, in respect to gross anatomy-the science of structure little could be added to the knowledge which has been continuously accumulated since the days I have previously referred to; but it was Bichat who in 1801, by his treatise on the minute anatomy of the tissues, opened up a new branch of inquiry which but for the microscope could not have existed, and for which the microscope has done what the reflecting telescope did for astronomy. It would not seem, however, that the work of himself and his followers had borne much practical fruit even in my early days. I have told you what was then the relation of the microscope to the study of morbid anatomy. Its position in respect to healthy histology was scarcely better and it is only since then that the impetus for inves- tigation has arisen, and the application this impetus to