General physiology : an outline of the science of life / by Max Verworn, tr. from the 2d German ed. and edited by Frederic S. Lee. With two hundred and eighty-five illustrations.

  • Max Verworn
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: General physiology : an outline of the science of life / by Max Verworn, tr. from the 2d German ed. and edited by Frederic S. Lee. With two hundred and eighty-five illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    evident that the problem of physiology, the explanation of vital phenomena, had already begun more or less clearly to be recog- nised. Hitherto, individual physiological facts had been observed, and physiological questions had been discussed incidentally. But now, the more clearly the problem of physiology began to be formulated, the more the treatment of physiological questions began to assume the character of scientific investigation. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), the great polyhistor of antiquity, estab- lished! the ^preliminary conditions for this advance by accumulating- a vast mass of material in the form of facts. The significance of Aristotle's relation to physiology does not lie in explaining vital phenomena—very often his explanations are uncritical, and, more- over, they do not appear prominent in his work—but rather in observing and recording a great number of physiological phenomena. In the midst of this material by the side of striking and acute researches, there occurs, as might have been expected, much erroneous observation; such, for examjjle, is the origin of eels and frogs from mud by spontaneous generation. Nevertheless, his recorded observations form the basis of the new stage of develoj)- ment into which physiology passed after Aristotle, and which is characterised by the clear recognition of the physiological problem and its vast importance in practical medicine. After Aristotle, by his systematising work, had laid a broad empirical foundation for natural science,- the doctrine of the 'jmcuvia received a wider extension among the later pneumatic l)hysicians, especially through the efforts of Athenaeus and Aretaeus (both about 50 a.d.). It is in the nature of this doctrine, that it must endeavour to comprehend and explain the l)henomena of life from a single point of view; and, accordingly, we find now for the first time a clear, conscious recognition of the ])hysiological problem and a systematic comprehension of physio- logical phenomena. The man who first clearly perceived the nature and significance of physiology was Galen (131—about 200 A.D.). Galen saw that practical medicine could not thrive unless it were based upon a very detailed knowledge of the normal vital phenomena of the human body. The investigation of the vital functfons of the body must be the first pre-recpiisite of an art of healing. This practical aim was the first incentive to the develop- ment of physiology, and controlled the science almost exclusively until the eighteenth century. Galen was also the first to recognise clearly the importance of a knowledge of the anatomy of the body in an understanding of the functions of its parts, and laid great value upon the dissection of animals; he himself dissected pigs and monkeys especially. Moreover, he perceived the im- portance of animal experimentation in the investigation of physio- logical phenomena; and, although the experimental method did not assume under him that exact form and that fundamental