Observations on the physiology and pathology of the nervous system : retrospective address delivered at the twenty-seventh annual meeting of the British Medical Association in Liverpool, 1859 / by A.T. Houghton Waters.

  • Waters, A. T. Houghton (Alderman Thomas Houghton), 1826-1912.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the physiology and pathology of the nervous system : retrospective address delivered at the twenty-seventh annual meeting of the British Medical Association in Liverpool, 1859 / by A.T. Houghton Waters. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    In considering the progress which neuro-physiology has made, it is impossible not to see that the present century, in this as in other departments of science, has indeed been pro- lific of results; nor can we contemplate the advances that have been made, or the principles and important generalizations which have been established, without experiencing feelings of satisfaction and of pride, at the distinguished part which our own countrymen have taken in the labours and researches which have led to results, so vast, and so valuable. The names of Bell, of Mayo, of Marshall Hall, of Todd, of Newport, of Car- penter, of Lockhart Clarke, are familiar to us all; and a host of other names, not less worthy of honourable mention, might be enumerated, did time permit. The works of these men have tended to place the British school of physiology in the high position it now holds; their researches have removed from the chaos of doubt and the region of uncertainty many of the most important facts of neurological science, and have given us clearer and more definite notions of the mechanism by which the automatic and instinctive actions of animal life are performed, of the mode in which sensations are perceived, and in which voluntary impulses act. But the labours of British physiologists have not been con- fined to, nor do the honours to which they are entitled rest alone upon, their observations of any one particular set of vital phenomena; and whether we look to the investigation of the elementary tissues of the body, of the structure, or the functions of individual organs; whether we look to the re- searches into the vascular system, or the nature of the fluid which it circulates ; whether we look to the examination of the anatomical characteristics of the blood, or of those subtle pro- cesses which accompany its coagulation—in fine, whether we contemplate the physiologist as investigating the nature and properties of each atomic portion of the body, or taking in, in the vast comprehensiveness of his genius, the whole range of animated nature, classifying and arranging the facts which other labourers have assisted to accumulate, deducing from them the great principles which regulate the processes of organic life, and demonstrating the unity of design, and the adaptation of means to end, which characterise the works of our beneficent Creator,—we find in each the representa- tive and the type in the British school of physiology; we