Biology and Its Makers: With Portraits and Other IllustrationsLocy, William A. (William Albert)
History
Biology and Its Makers: With Portraits and Other Illustrations
Locy, William A. (William Albert)
Biology -- History
Two Directions of Growth.--Physiology, established on the broad
foundations of Müller, developed along two independent pathways, the
physical and the chemical. We find a group of physiologists, among whom
Weber, Ludwig, Du Bois-Reymond, and Helmholtz were noteworthy leaders,
devoted to the investigations of physiological facts through the
application of measurements and records made by machinery. With these
men came into use the time-markers, the myographs, and the ingenious
methods of recording blood-pressure, changes in respiration, the
responses of muscle and nerve to various forms of stimulation, the rate
of transmission of nerve-currents, etc.
The investigation of vital activities by means of measurements and
instrumental records has come to represent one especial phase of
modern physiology. As might have been predicted, the discoveries and
extensions of knowledge resulting from this kind of experimentation
have been remarkable, since it is obvious that permanent records made
by mechanical devices will rule out many errors; and, moreover, they
afford an opportunity to study at leisure phenomena that occupy a very
brief time.
The other marked line of physiological investigation has been in the
domain of chemistry, where Wöhler, Liebig, Kühne, and others have,
through the study of the chemical changes occurring in its body,
observed the various activities that take place within the organism.
They have reduced all tissues and all parts of the body to chemical
analysis, studied the chemical changes in digestion, in respiration,
etc. The more recent observers have also made a particular feature of
the study of the chemical changes going on within the living matter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account