Life sciences

“ Man being the most complicated of all organised beings, not only are the laws of his vitality the most numerous, and the most practically interesting, but they go far to include all that is to be said of the workings of animal life in general. Thus, then, the mother science of Biology, as a general or fundamental science, comprises Vegetable, Animal, and Human physiology. The classificatory adjunct sciences are Botany and Zoology. It is in the various aspects of the mother science that we look for the account of all vital phenomena, and all practical applications to the preservation of life. ”

“ WE have repeatedly seen, in the course of our historical view of Physiology, that those who have studied the structure of animals and plants, have had a conviction forced upon them, that the organs are constructed and combined in subservience to the life and functions of the whole. The parts have a purpose, as well as a law;—we can trace Final Causes, as well as Laws of Causation. This principle is peculiar to physiology; and it might naturally be expected that, in the progress of the science, it would come under special consideration. ”

“ Biological science is not entirely separable from physical science, for a majority of life phenomena, in final analysis can be explained only in terms of physical science. Physiology has for its very foundation Physics and Chemistry. Among the newest of the sciences is Biochemistry, the chemistry of life; and within its limits are some of the most promising fields of research. No argument is necessary, a knowledge of physical science is indispensable in the interpretation of life phenomena, and the understanding of biological processes. ”

“ For convenience in arrangement we may group this survey along the lines of practical applications of service to mankind, such as occur in medicine, agriculture and kindred industries, domestic and social life, and those which have to do with the acquisition of knowledge and with education.
Applications of biology in medical science, in agriculture and in domestic life have in many cases assumed such intimate and essential character that we often look upon them as applied sciences more than in any other way. ”

“ The peculiar nature of life itself, of growth, disease, old-age, degeneration, death and dissolution 432are presumably only manifestations of chemical and physical laws. The ultimate goal of all experimental biology, therefore, will be reached only when the basic physico-chemical properties of life are understood. At that time only will the perennial controversy between vitalism and mechanism be ended.
Economic Zoology. A moment’s reflection will show that economic biology is the most essential of all sciences to the human welfare and progress. ”

“ I have long thought physiology one of the greatest of sciences, sure sooner, or more probably later, greatly to benefit mankind; but, judging from all other sciences, the benefits will accrue only indirectly in the search for abstract truth. It is certain that physiology can progress only by experiments on living animals. Therefore the proposal to limit research to points of which we can now see the bearings in regard to health, etc., I look at as puerile. I thought at first it would be good to limit vivisection to public laboratories ”

“ The Study of the Biological and Physical Sciences.—The last century is marked by scientific development along several {466} rather distinct lines as follows: the study of the earth, or geology; animal and vegetable life, or biology; atomic analysis, or chemistry; biochemistry; physics, especially that part relating to electricity and radioactivity; and more recently it might be stated that investigations are carried on in psychology and sociology, while mathematics and astronomy have made progress. ”

“ Since the custom largely prevails of teaching physiology in advance of the sciences upon which it rests—biology, physics, and chemistry—care should be exercised to develop correct ideas of the principles and processes derived from these sciences. Too much latitude has been taken in the past in the use of comparisons and illustrations drawn from "everyday life." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He will study not botany and zoology, which, as I have said, would take him too far away from his ultimate goal; but, by duly arranged instruction, combined with work in the laboratory upon the leading types of animal and vegetable life, he will lay a broad, and at the same time solid, foundation of biological knowledge; he will come to his medical studies with a comprehension of the great truths of morphology and of physiology, with his hands trained to dissect and his eyes taught to see. ”

“ I say again, with all possible emphasis, that the mechanistic hypothesis or machine-theory of living beings is not fully established, that it may not be adequate or even true; yet I can only believe that until every other possibility has realty been exhausted scientific biologists should hold fast to the working program that has created the sciences of biology. The vitalistic hypothesis may be held, and is held, as a matter of faith; but we cannot call it science without misuse of the word. ”

“ Physiology prepared the way for Pathology, and the Principles and Practice of Medicine placed the experience of the whole world under contribution. Therapeutics claimed for her use the vegetable, mineral and animal kingdoms, the collateral sciences became cultivated as auxiliaries, and Botany, Mineralogy, Chemistry and Zoölogy became branches of medical study ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the study of the relations of the organism to its environment, organic and inorganic, also belongs to physiology in the wider sense; we call this part of it perilogy, or the physiology of relations. To this belong chorology, or the science of distribution (also called biological geography, as it deals with geographical and topographical distribution) , and œcology or bionomy (also recently called ethology) , the science of the domestic side of organic life, of the life-needs of organisms and their relations to other organisms with which they live (biocenosis, symbiosis, parasitism) . ”

“ I have pointed out, in an earlier part of this chapter, that the history of all branches of science proves that they must attain a considerable stage of development before they yield practical 'fruits;' and this is eminently true of physiology. It is only within the present epoch, that physiology and chemistry have reached the point at which they could offer a scientific foundation to agriculture; and it is only within the present epoch, that zoology and physiology have yielded any very great aid to pathology and hygiene. ”

“ A theory founded upon nature, that should bind together the scattered facts of medical knowledge, and converge into one point of view the laws of organic life, would thus on many accounts contribute to the interest of society. It would capacitate men of moderate abilities to practise the art of healing with real advantage to the public; it would enable every one of literary acquirements to distinguish the genuine disciples of medicine from those of boastful effrontery, or of wily address; and would teach mankind in some important situations the knowledge of themselves. ”

“ Perhaps the most important acting from within has been the use of animals. The study of the great domain of infectious diseases has revealed such a similarity between the diseases of man and the higher animals that we hesitate now less than before to apply courageously the knowledge gained in our experiments upon the highest mammals to human physiology and pathology. Without this aid from animal life, medicine as a progressive experimental science would dwindle into insignificance. ”

“ In the field of biological science progress has not been so marked, yet the elaborate garnering of facts regarding anatomy, physiology, and the zoological sciences is at least a valuable preparation for the generalizations of a later time. ”

“ These researches have developed the science of physiology, or the laws of bodily action, on many accounts the most modern and extensive of our new acquisitions of natural learning. Through these studies we have come to know something of the laws or principles by which life is handed on from generation to generation, and by which the gradations of structure have been advanced from the simple creatures which appear like bits of animated jelly to the body and mind of man.
The greatest contribution which modern naturalists have made to knowledge concerns the origin of organic species. ”

“ Biology, too, includes within its range the study of man himself, so far as one side of his nature is concerned; and, as regards his mental and moral qualities, the psychologist and sociologist have already begun to recognize that the progress of their sciences is closely bound up with the development of certain branches of biology. As regards its practical value I might set forth at length the indebtedness of scientific medicine and of sanitary science to biology ”

“ 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. ”

“ These ideas arose shortly after the middle of the century, and have dominated the development of biological science up to the present time. It is evident that the aim of biological study must be to test these conceptions and carry them out into details. The chemical and mechanical laws of nature must be applied to vital phenomena in order to see whether they can furnish a satisfactory explanation of life. Are the laws and forces of chemistry sufficient to explain digestion? ”

“ Only discussion with the living teacher will discover and correct such errors.
The reader must be open-minded to new discoveries, new theories, new methods. At the present time, as never before, extensive researches are being made in biology, hygiene, dietetics, child psychology, and pedagogy. Important discoveries as revolutionary as the discovery of the circulation of the blood, radio-activity, the cellular basis of life, may be made at any future time. ”

“ In order to obtain a Science of Biology, we must analyse the Idea of Life. It has been proved by the biological speculations of past time, that Organic Life cannot rightly be solved into Mechanical or Chemical Forces, or the operation of a Vital Fluid, or of a Soul. ”

“ If the famous suggestion, that all animal and vegetable life results from a single vital germ, and that all the different animals and plants now existent were developed by a natural process of evolution from that germ, were a demonstrated truth, we should still be able to point to the evidence of intelligence displayed in the measured and progressive development, in those exquisite forms so different from what blind chance could produce, and in the manifest adaptation of surrounding circumstances to the living creature, and of the living creature to surrounding circumstances. ”

“ Experimental Biology and General Physiology are one and the same science, in method as well as content, since both aim at explaining life from the physico-chemical constitution of living matter. The series of monographs on Experimental Biology will therefore include the field of traditional General Physiology. ”

“ So many and various are the materials relating to Biology or the Science of Life, recently brought to light by scientific labourers of all kinds, that in attempting to give an account of the progress of medicine, the difficulty of the task will be, how to limit the range of our quest so as to give a sufficient explanation of the selected subjects, and to avoid a mere catalogue of names and discoveries. ”

“ This is the first great attempt to construct a scientific, physiological theory of the development of organic life and to prove that the physiological laws and the chemical and physical forces that rule in nature to-day must also have been at work in the world of yesterday. ”