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47 2 MODERN TIMES.
possible to trace out carefully the course of the nerve-fibres
in the brain and spinal cord, to determine their distribution
in these organs, and to observe the minuter structure of the
grey substance and the different forms of its cells; while at
the same time by experiments on living animals, which
consisted of effecting a local destruction of, and consequentabolition
of vital functions in, certain parts of the central
nervous system, men sought to determine the normal functions
of such parts. A comparison was made between the
results thus obtained and observations made at the bedside
or in the post-mortem room.
The physiology of the sense organs was also the subject
of assiduous study. The origin of the visual act, the perception
of colours, the importance of that part of the eye
which is sensitive to light, the mechanism of accommodation,
the action of the refractive media, intraocular appearances,
binocular vision, the subject of the horopter, etc., were all.
submitted to thorough examination and rendered intelligible
by the accumulation of numerous facts. In the same
way the senses of hearing, smell, and taste, and tactual
and general sensation were studied individually and made
subjects of scientific knowledge.
Physiological research however has not only succeeded
in rendering an almost complete account of the problem of
the functions and laws of the human organism in health:
it has, in addition, brought forward a number of observations
which have prepared and smoothed the way for an
explanation of phenomena manifested by the body in
disease.
DIAGNOSIS, PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY AND
EXPERIMENTAL PATHOLOGY, NOSOLOGY
AND MATERIA MEDICA.
PATHOLOGY, the science which deals with disease, has
been marked throughout by stages of development similar;
to those which have characterized physiology. After men