RECENT PROGRESS IN PHYSIOLOGY,1 By MICHAEL FOSTER, We who have come from the little island on the other side of the great waters to take part in this important gathering of the British Association have of late been much exercised in retrospection. We have been looking back on the sixty years' reign of our beloved Sovereign and dwelling on what has happened during her gracious rule. We have, perhaps, done little in calling to mind the wrongs, the mistakes, and the failures of the Victorian era, but our minds and our mouths have been full of its achievements and its progress; and each of us, of himself or through another, has been busy in bringing back to the present the events of more than half a century of the past. It was while I, with others, was in this retrospective mood that the duty of preparing some few words to say to you to-day seemed suddenly to change from an impalpable cloud in the far distance to a heavy burden pressing directly on the back, and in choosing something to say I have succumbed to the dominant influence. Before putting pen to paper, however, I recovered sufficiently to resist the temptation to add one more to the many reviews which have appeared of the progress of physiology during the Victorian era. I also rejected the idea of doing that for which I find precedents in past presidential addresses, namely, of attempting to tell what has been the history of the science to which a section is devoted during the brief interval which has elapsed since the section last met; to try and catch physiology, or any other science, as it rushes through the brief period of some twelve months seemed to me not unlike photographing the flying bullet without adequate apparatus; the result could only be either a blurred or a delusive image. But I bethought me that this is not the first-we hope it will not be the last-time that the British Association has met in the Western Hemisphere; and though the events of the thirteen years which have clipped by since the meeting at Montreal in 1884 might seem to furnish a very Address to the physiological section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Toronto, 1897, by Prof. Michael Foster, M. A., M. D., D. C. L., LL. D., secretary of the Royal Society, president of the section. From Report of British Association, 1897. slender oat on which to pipe a presidential address, I have hoped that I might be led to sound upon it some few notes which might be listened to. And, indeed-though perhaps when we come to look into it closely almost every period would seem to have a value of its own—the past thirteen years do, in a certain sense, mark a break between the physiology of the past and that of the future. When the association met at Montreal in 1884, Darwin, whose pregnant ideas have swayed physiology in the limited sense of that word, as well as that broader study of living beings which we sometimes call biology, as indeed they have every branch of natural knowledge, had been taken from us only some two years before, and there were still alive most of the men who did the great works of physiology of the middle and latter half of this century. The gifted Claude Bernard had passed away some years before, but his peers might have been present at Montreal. Bowman, whose classic works on muscle and kidney stand out as peaks in the physiological landscape of the past, models of researches finished and complete so far as the opportunities of the time would allow, fruitful beginnings and admirable guides for the labors of others. BrownSequard, who shares with Bernard the glory of having opened up the great modern path of the influence of the nervous system on vascular, and thus on nutritional, events, and who, if he made some mistakes, did many things which will last for all time. Brücke, whose clear judg ment, as shown in his digestive and other work, gave permanent value to whatever he put forth. Du Bois Reymond, who, if he labored in a narrow path, set a brilliant example of the way in which exact physical analysis may be applied to the phenomena of living beings, and in other ways had a powerful influence on the progress of physiology. Donders, whose mind seemed to have caught something of the better qualities of the physiological organ to which his professional life was devoted, and our knowledge of which he so largely extended, so sharply did he focus his mental eye on every physiological problem to which he turned-and these were many and varied. Helmholtz, whose great works on vision and hearing, to say nothing of his earlier distinctly physiological researches, make us feel that if physics gained much, physiology lost even more when the physiologist turned aside to more distinctly physical inquiries. Lastly, and not least, Ludwig, who by his own hands or through his pupils did so much to make physiology the exact science which it is to-day, but which it was not when he began his work. I say lastly, but I might add the name of one who, though barred by circumstances from contributing much directly to physiology by way of research, so used his powerful influence in many ways in aid of physiological interests as to have helped the science onward to no mean extent, at least among English-speaking people-I mean Huxley. All these might have met at Montreal. They have all left us now. Among the peers of the men I have mentioned whose chief labors were carried on in the forties, the fifties, and the sixties of the century, one prominent inquirer alone seems to be left, Albert von Kölliker, who in his old age is doing work of which even he in his youth might have been proud. The thirteen years which have swept the others away seem to mark a gulf between the physiological world of to-day and that of the time in which most of their work was done. They are gone, but they have left behind their work and their names. May they of the future, as I believe we of the present are doing, take up their work and their example, doing work other than theirs but after their pattern, following in their steps. In the thirteen years during which these have passed away physiology has not been idle. Indeed, the more we look into the period the more it seems to contain. The study of physiology, as of other sciences, though it may be stimulated by difficulties (and physiology has the stimulus of a special form of opposition unknown to other sciences), expands under the sunshine of opportunity and aid. And it may be worth while to compare the opportunities for study of physiology in 1884 with those in 1897. At this meeting of the British Association I may fitly confine myself, I was going to say, to British matters; but I feel at this point, as others have felt, the want of a suitable nomenclature. We who are gathered here to-day have, with the exception of a few honored guests from the Eastern Hemisphere, one common bond, one common token of unity, and, so far as I know, one only; I am speaking now of outward tokens; down deeper in our nature there are, I trust, yet others. We all speak the English tongue. Some of us belong to what is called Great Britain and Ireland, others to that which is sometimes spoken of as Greater Britain. But there are others here who belong to neither; though English in tongue, they are in no sense British. To myself, to whom the being English in speech is a fact of far deeper moment than any political boundary, and who wish at the present moment to deal with the study of physiology among all those who speak the English tongue, there comes the great want of some word which will denote all such. I hope, indeed I think, that others feel the same want too. The term Anglo-Saxon is at once pedantic and incorrect, and yet there is none other; and, in the absence of such a better term, I shall be forgiven if I venture at times to use the seemingly narrow word English as really meaning something much broader than British in its very broadest sense. Using English in this sense, I may, I think, venture to say that the thirteen years which separate 1884 from to day have witnessed among English people a development of opportunities for physiological study such as no other like period has seen. It is not without significance that only a year or two previous to this period, in England proper, in little England, neither of the ancient universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which, historically at least, represent the fullest academical aspirations of the nation, possessed a chair of physiology. The present professors, who are the first, were both appointed in 1883. Up to that time the science of physiology had not been deemed worthy, by either university, of a distinctive professorial mechanism. The act of these ancient institutions was only a manifestation of modern impulses, shared also by the metropolis and by the provinces at large. Whereas up to that time the posts for teaching physiology, by whatever name they were called, had been in most cases held by men whose intellectual loins were girded for other purposes than physiology, and who used the posts as stepping stones for what they considered better things, since that time, as each post became vacant, it has almost invariably been filled by men wishing and purposing at least to devote their whole energies to the science. Scotland, in many respects the forerunner of England in intellectual matters, had not so much need of change; but she, too, has moved in the same direction, as has also the sister island. And if we turn to this Western Continent we find in Canada and in the States the same notable enlargement of physiological opportunity, or even a still more notable one. If the English-speaking physiologist dots on the map cach place on this Western Hemisphere which is an academic focus of his science, he may well be proud of the opportunities now afforded for the development of English physiology; and the greater part of this has come within the last thirteen years. Professorial chairs or their analogues are, however, after all but a small part of the provision for the development of physiological science. The heart of physiology is the laboratory. It is this which sends the life blood through the frame, and in respect to this, perhaps, more than to anything else, has the progress of the past thirteen years been striking. Doubtless on both sides of the waters there were physiological laboratories, and good ones, in 1884; but how much have even these during that period been enlarged and improved, and how many new ones have been added? In how many places, even right up to about 1884, the professor or lecturer was fain to be content with mere lecture experiments and a simple course of histology, with perhaps a few chemical exercises for his students. Now each teacher, however modest his post, feels and says that the authorities under whom he works are bound to provide him with the means of leading his students along the only path by which the science can be truly entered upon-that by which each learner repeats for himself the fundamental observations on which the science is based. But there is a still larger outcome from the professorial chair and the physiological laboratory than the training of the student. These are opportunities not for teaching only, but also for research. And per haps in no respect has the development during the past thirteen years been so marked as in this. Never so clearly as during this period has it become recognized that each post for teaching is no less a post for learning, that among academic duties the making knowledge is as urgent as the distributing it, and that among professorial qualifications the gift of garnering in new truths is at least as needful as facility in the didactic exposition of old ones. Thirteen years has seen a great change in this matter, and the progress has been perhaps greater on this side of the water than on the other, so far as English-speaking people are concerned. We on the other side have witnessed with envy the establishment on this side of a university, physiology having in it an honored place, the keynote of which is the development of original research. It will, I venture to think, be considered a strong confirmation of my present theme that the Clark University at Worcester was founded only ten years ago. And here, as an English-speaking person, may I be allowed to point out, not without pride, that these thirteen years of increased opportunity have been thirteen years of increased fruitfulness? In the history of our science, among the names of the great men who have made epochs, English names, from Harvey onward, occupy no mean place; but the greatness of such great men is of no national birth; it comes as it lists, and is independent of time and of place. If we turn to the more everyday workers, whose continued labors more slowly build up the growing edifice and provide the needful nourishment for the greatness of which I have just spoken, we may, I will dare to say, affirm that the last thirteen years have brought contributions to physiology, made known in the English tongue, which, whether we regard their quantity or their quality, significantly outdo the like contributions made in any foregoing period of the same length. Those contributions have been equally as numerous, equally as good, on this side as on the other side of the waters. And here I trust I shall be pardoned if personal ties and affection lead me to throw in a personal word. May I not say that much which has been done on this side has been directly or indirectly the outcome of the energy and gifts of one whom I may fitly name on an occasion such as this, since, though he belonged to the other side, his physiological life was passed and his work was done on this side, one who has been taken from us since this association last met-Henry Newell Martin? Yes; during these thirteen years, if we put aside the loss of comrades, physiology has been prosperous with us and the outlook is bright; but, as every cloud has its silver lining, so shadow follows all sunshine, success brings danger, and something bitter rises up amid the sweet of prosperity. The development of which I have spoken is an outcome of the progressive activity of the age, and the dominant note of that activity is heard in the word "commercial." Noblemen and noblewomen open shop, and everyone, low as well as high, presses forward toward large or quick profits. The very influences which have made devotion to scientific inquiry a possible means of livelihood, and so fostered scientific investigation, are creating a new danger. The path of the professor was in old times narrow and straight, and |