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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    the surest support of physiology ; without it physiolog}- is scarcely conceivable. Mtiller was incited by this idea, and the result was the foundation of a wholly new science in his ctmipaorUivc jihysiology. Throughout his whole life he defended the position expressed in the words, Physiology can be only comparative, and among the very large number of his physiological works there are few in which the comparative principle is not more or less clearly expressed. He presented the results of his own investigations together with ])ractically all the physiological knowledge of his time in his '• Handhuch de7- Phiisiologie dcs Menschen. This work stands to- day unsurpassed in the genuinely philosophical manner with which the material, swollen to vast ^proportions by innumerable special researches, was for the first time sifted and elaborated into a unitary picture of the mechanism within the living organism. In this respect the Handhuch is to-day not only unsurpassed, but unequalled. Naturally many of its details are incorrect according to present ideas; later researches performed with a more perfect technique have greatly extended and transformed some depart- ments ; even many of Miiller's general physiological ideas, such as that of vital force, have been completely abandoned by the later physiology ; nevertheless, it remains that of all the numerous hand- books that have since appeared none has reached that of the great master as regards the mode of dealing with the material. Most of the later Hand-books, Text-books, Elements, etc., although intended almost exclusively for the use of students, do not take the trouble to point out even briefl}- the aims, the problem and the purpose of physiological science, let alone giving to the matter as a whole a philosophical treatment in Miiller's sense. Such a lack must be regarded as a serious detriment by thinking students who do not learn simply by rote. Only a very few text-books form an exception to this, as, e.g., Briicke's admirable Vorlesungen iibcr Physiologie. The tireless physiological activity of Miiller, which won for him the fame of being the greatest physiologist of all time, did not prevent him from giving himself up in the later years of his life with equal enthusiasm to morphology, especially zoology, com- parative anatomy, and paleontology, and of acquiring the name of the greatest morphologist of his time. So many-sided and comprehensive was he that by his own fundamental labours he mastered two large sciences, either one of which a single person is at present hardly able to survey unaided. It is no wonder that so large a realm could not be held together as a unit after the death of its ruler. Like Alexander's universal empire, it became divided into many small territories, each one of which controlled itself; and with the present boundary of science it would be difficult to find a worthy successor to Miiller, even