Biomedical research

“ The progress made by today's medical researchers is part of a long tradition in American biomedical research. In the past century, researchers have triumphed over such formerly deadly diseases as diphtheria, polio, and tetanus. ”

“ Clinical researches on new biomedical technologies shall, after passing the ethical review, be conducted in medical institutions with necessary and sufficient conditions. Clinical research operations on humans shall be performed by medical professionals with relevant qualifications. ”

“ No doubt both clinical study and pathological observation have not only helped practical medicine onward, but they have also greatly contributed to the progress of physiology itself. In fact, I find it impossible to separate exact clinical and pathological work from scientific research of a purely physiological nature. Is not all treatment more or less experiment? ”

“ These accessory sciences have considerably developed in the evolution of medicine, and the art of medicine has become the chief motive power which urges men to research and discovery in the biological sciences, such as histology, embryology, comparative anatomy and physiology, anatomy and physiology of the brain, bacteriology, etc. Pure science now occupies such a position in medical studies that the "healing art" often remains in the background ”

“ The bio-chemist with his test tubes and his microscopes and his complex apparatus of research sits himself down and accumulates a mass of information about the human body. He investigates the diseases of the body and learns in detail just how these diseases spread and sometimes how they are caused; he can present you with a diagnosis, showing the exact stage to which the degeneration of a certain organ has proceeded, and perhaps he can suggest to you a change of diet or some drug which will, for a time at least, check the process of the breakdown. ”

“ This period is indeed the golden age of medical progress and one to which the historian or philosopher must give his best attention if he is to interpret, properly, the impulses which actuate medical research at the present time. That the earlier history of medicine is overshadowed by the rapid progress of modern discovery as represented in bacteriology is in the nature of things. But it should not, for that reason, be forgotten that the art of medicine existed before this period and with it much science. ”

“ The methods of research are essentially those employed by physiologists, the action of substances being studied in the usual way on bacteria, leucocytes, frogs, rabbits and other animals. Not only are the general symptoms investigated, but it is necessary to carry out experiments on the nerves, muscles, circulation, secretions, &c., so as to get a more exact knowledge of the reasons of the general action. ”

“ There can be no question, then, as to the nature or the value of the connection between medicine and the biological sciences. There can be no doubt that the future of pathology and of therapeutics, and therefore that of practical medicine, depends upon the extent to which those who occupy themselves with these subjects are trained in the methods and impregnated with the fundamental truths of biology. ”

“ Medical research is under-endowed and stupidly endowed, not for systematic scientific inquiry so much as for the unscientific seeking of remedies for specific evils—for cancer, consumption, and the like. Yet masked, misrepresented limited and hampered, the work of establishing a sound science of vital processes in health and disease is probably going on now, similar to the clarification of physics and chemistry that went on in the later part of the eighteenth and the early years of the nineteenth centuries. ”

“ Now, physiology can not advance without vivisection; experiment on living animals is as essential to its progress (though far less general in application) as is dissection for the study of anatomy. Therefore, experimental research, including that carried out on living animals, is as necessary for the progress of the practice of medicine as is experimental research in any other science for its advancement and application to daily life. ”

“ Henceforward, as it appears to me, the connection of medicine with the biological sciences is clearly defined. Pure pathology is that branch of biology which defines the particular perturbation of cell-life, or of the coördinating machinery, or of both, on which the phenomena of disease depend. ”

“ It is by the recognition of this true method of biological research and by the generous support of physiologists who honestly seek for truth, even when opposed by temporary fashions of medical opinion, that medicine will become a science. ”

“ Modern research, by employing every available means and vastly improved appliances, has demonstrated that the forces that are active in controlling and regulating the animal organism are numerous and wide-spread. Haller, Hunter, and Bichat led the way in basing pathology upon physiological knowledge, by which alone practical medicine can be successfully directed; and exhibited clearly that observation, experience, and inductive reasoning are the sure methods of obtaining right principles. Without these, as has been remarked by Dr. Rush, “medicine is an humble art, and a degrading occupation.” ”

“ III. Scientific research in biology must be based upon close and extensive observation of the varying forms of animal life, under natural conditions, with post-mortem examination of the records left by health and disease. Experiments, whether for the repair of lesions or the cure of disease, can only become scientific when made upon the type of life to be benefited by the experiment. ”

“ Have we solved the problem of cancer? Far be it from us to make any such claim. Scientific research and study must still go on in the laboratory, but clinical research and study, with laboratory work, on the human subject, which have not been hitherto sufficiently cultivated, should be 202pushed, so that by a mass of carefully recorded observations the truth or falsity of what has been here quoted and said may be refuted or confirmed. ”

“ At a period when pathological research is lending its aid in investigating the appearances of disease in every part of the body, and many nice distinctions in diagnosis are aimed at, which are better calculated for nosological than practical purposes, it seems to me not a little extraordinary, that so few have cultivated that most important branch of medicine, the study of the diseases of children. ”

“ It must have satisfactory stables and operating rooms for small and large animals, for the experimental and observational study of animal diseases is the logical outcome of laboratory research. It is another intermediate station on the way to human pathology. It frequently presents such strikingly clear solutions of difficult problems and permits us to introduce the comparative method which has been so fruitful in the biological sciences. ”

“ THE phrase "Research in Medicine" will naturally arouse different thoughts and associations in the minds of different groups of men.
The bacteriologist will be reminded of Pasteur, Koch, Behring and Flexner and the triumphs of bacteriology and serum-therapy; the surgeon, of Lister and antisepsis, of anesthesia, and of the X-ray ”

“ The advance in these general subjects it is my intention to follow along the lines of physics, chemistry and biology, as they developed in France, England and Germany. And, if in the course of this presentation I have much to say about the work shops of these sciences, it is because universities, laboratories and hospitals, as. well as societies and journals, represent the visible machinery of nineteenth century research in medicine, and whether we regard them as the cause or the effect of the awakening of 70 years ago, they to-day constitute our hope for the future of medical research. ”

“ These scientists are optimistic that information gained through their research will provide means to develop new techniques for diagnosing, treating, and possibly preventing these debilitating diseases. ”

“ It is our pride that medicine, from an art, and a pretty black one at that, originally, is becoming a science. And the most powerful factor in this development, its indispensable basis, in fact, has been the invention of instruments of precision—the microscope, the fever thermometer, the stethoscope, the ophthalmoscope, the test-tube, the culture medium, the triumphs of the bacteriologist and of the chemist. Any man who makes a final diagnosis in a serious case without resorting to some or all of these means is regarded—and justly—as careless and derelict in his duty to his patient. ”

“ The search for the explanation of diseased states in modified cell-life; the discovery of the important part played by parasitic organisms in the ætiology of disease; the elucidation of the action of medicaments by the methods and the data of experimental physiology; appear to me to be the greatest steps which have ever been made towards the establishment of medicine on a scientific basis. I need hardly say they could not have been made except for the advance of normal biology. ”

“ As we approach the 21st century it is clearer than ever that science and technology are changing the way we live and work and raise our families. Remarkable breakthroughs in biomedical science are helping to unravel the mysteries of life, holding out new hope for lifesaving cures to some of our most dreaded diseases. ”

“ The use of our instruments of precision, our knowledge, of pathology, all tend to narrow that bridge which must extend as a connecting link between empirical treatment, and treatment depending for its success upon a comprehensive knowledge of the natural history of disease. ”

“ A new era in medicine has been marked by a new science, depending on the immutable laws of physical phenomena, and, like the discoveries founded on such a basis, simple in its application and easily understood--a gift of science to a favored son; one by which the ear is converted into the eye, the hidden recesses of visceral disease open to view; a new guide to the treatment, and a new help to the ready detection, prevention and cure of the most widely spread diseases which affect mankind. ”

“ Comparative anatomy and physiology have thrown very much light upon many obscure problems to which the study of man gave rise. Therefore, I would most earnestly urge upon all medical men the study of biology. It may be replied that the courses of study are now crowded, but it is certain that the successful physician of the future must know something of nature as a whole. Already many of our most important theories as to disease—the structure of organs, cell-growth, cell-life, and many more—have come to medicine from biology. ”

“ It is impossible, however, to enumerate all the physiological gains of the last twenty or thirty years, or to point out their manifold applications in the cure and prevention of disease. The full control of the processes of disease, which is the goal of the physician and the surgeon, can only be attained through an accurate knowledge of the conditions governing the functions of the healthy body. The foundation of medicine and surgery is physiology: and it is only on living animals that the processes of life can be investigated. ”

“ Whatever skill we may boast in investigating the nature of a disease, or in understanding the structure of the body, yet without a knowledge of the instruments which are to be used, and of their properties and action upon the body, whereby they produce a change from sickness to health, other knowledge avails little in the cure of diseases.
The Theory of Physic, more commonly termed Medical Institutions, comprehends under it, the important doctrines of Physiology and Pathology. ”

“ For he will be the one to apply new points of view, gained experimentally, in the prevention and treatment of disease. Unless he gains some confidence in the laboratory and its methods and is ready to welcome its fruits how can medicine make any progress? His own contact with the laboratory should be for him a strong support and create in him faith in the ultimate triumph of science over the problems and mysteries of disease. Its influence should reach far beyond his years of training. ”

“ The physician is, alas! too often powerless to contend against the ills that are raging around us. But, really, we can not expect physiology to cure incurable diseases and make men immortal; its mission is to discover the truth, and it is for the physician to apply the lessons of the new truth to the treatment of diseases. Who can say seriously that modern medicine, enlightened by the great physiological discoveries of this and former centuries, is not superior to the medicine of the middle ages? The circulation of the blood was discovered by vivisection. ”

“ The immediate object of physiological experiment is, then, not to make out new practical methods of treating disease, but rather to attain to a more complete and sound understanding of those general laws which govern the actions of the living body in health—laws which must ever form the only firm basis of the knowledge of disease, and the only sure guide to judicious modes of treatment. ”

“ It is my profound conviction that a future will come, it may be a somewhat distant future, in which the treatment of disease will be really guided by science. Just as completely as mechanical science has come to be the guide of the mechanical arts, do I believe, and I feel confident, that physiological science will eventually come to be the guide of medicine and surgery. ”

“ We have to dissect nature; which, for practice, is better than to abstract it.” “To clinical medicine the body becomes a pathological museum. In every part we recognise certain proclivities to morbid action; and the purpose of our study is to trace these tendencies to their source on the one hand, and to their effects on the other.” “The effects of disease may be for a third or fourth generation, but the laws of health are for a thousand.” “Happily, at this day, hygiene has gained strength enough to maintain an independent position in science. ”