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/26

 notion of the four elements, and of alchemy interspersed with streaks of the new chemistry which was then arising, is now pursued on lines in harmony with those of every- day laboratory investigation. To mention but one prac- tical result thence obtained, I would refer to the artificial digestive juices and prepared foods which have become most valuable remodies. On the physical side are the study of the phenomena of muscular contractility, and the expression of the work done in such terms that it may be calculated with the same accuracy as the fuel value of a pound of coals; the study of the laws of osmosis which underlie all the physiology of absorption and nutrition: the conditions affecting and determining gaseous inter- change which explain the process of respiration: the nature of elasticity and the important share it takes in the physics of the circulation: turn which way we will, we see now in our physiological laboratories--themselves the creation of the last twenty years experimenter and in- strument maker competing in a demand and supply of the apparatus by which such work as I have indicated has been rendered possible.

To speak of the advance of physiology is to imply a progress in pathology, since the latter is but the application of the former under the conditions of disease. Mutually aiding each other as they have done, it was not until phy- siology rested on a secure foundation that pathology could claim the title of rational. Although healthy structure came to be known, and the dependence upon it of function to be recognised, it was long before the same idea prevailed in respect to disease. It is the especial glory of Virchow's work on cellular pathology that he applied consistently to morbid structure and action the same principles which had already made considerable advance in regard to healthy.

Proceeding on such lines, lines that we feel assured are