The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1877-08-09
Huxley on Physiological Knowl-
edge.
From ar, address before the Domestic Econ

The Chief ground upon which lyen
ture to recommend that the teaching o
elementary physiology should form al
essential part of an organized course o
instruction in matters pertaining to do
nestle economy, is that knowledge o
even the elements of this subject sup
plies those conceptions of the constitu
ton and mode of action of the living
body and of the nature of health anC
disease, which prepare the mind TO re
ceive instruction froJn sanitary science
1t is, think, eminently desirable tina
the hygienist and the physician should
find something in the public mind to
1 which they can appeal; some little stock
q universally acknowledged truths
which may serve as a foundation fol
their warnings, and predispose towards
an intelligent obedience to their recon-
mendations.
Listening to ordinary talk about
health, disease and death, one is often
led to entertain doubt whether the
speakers believe that the course OF
natural causation runs as smoothly in
the human body as elsewhere. Indica-
tons are too often obvious of a strong,
though perhaps an unavowed and hall
unconscious, undercurrent of opinion
that the phenomena of life are not only
widely different in their superficial char
acters and in their practical Importance,
from other natural events; but that they
do not follow in that definite order
which characterizes the succession of all
other occurrences, and the statement of
which we call law of nature.
Hence, | think, arises the want of
heartiness of belief in the value of
knowledge respecting the laws of health
and disease, and of the foresight and
care to which knowledge is the essential
preliminary, which is so often noticea-
BILE; and corresponding laxity and
carelessness in practice, the results of
which are too frequently lamentable.
1t is said that, among the many re-
ligious sects of Russia, there is one
which holds that all disease is brought
about by the direct and special interior
ence of the Deity, and which, therefore,
looks with repugnance upon both pre-
ventive and curative measures, as alike
blasphemous interferences with the will
of God. Among ourselves, the Pecu-
lior People" are, believe, the only
persons who hold the like doctrine in its
integrity, and carry it out with logical
rigor. But many of us are old enough
to recOllect that the administration of
chloroform in assuagement of the
pangs of childbirth was, at its introduce
ton, strenuOusly resisted upon similar
grounds.
| am not sure that the feeling, of
which the doctrine to which have re-
ferred is the full expression, does not
lie at the bottom of the minds of great
many people, who would yet vigorously
object to give verbal assent to the doc
trine itself However this may be, the
main point is that sufficient knowledge
has now been acquired of vital
phenomena to justify the assertion that
the notion that there is any thing eX-
ceptional about these phenomena re-
ceives not particle of sup
port from any known fact. On
the contrary, there is vast and an in
mass of evidence that birth and
death, health and disease, are us much
parts of the ordinary stream of events
as the rising and setting of the sun, or
the changes of the moon, and that the
living body is a mechanism the proper
working of which we term health; its
disease; its stOppage, death.
The activity of this mechanism is depend
ent upon many and complicated condi-
tons, some of which are hOpelessly be-
yond our control, while others are
readily accessible and are capable of
being indefinitely modified by our own
actions. The business of the hygienist
and of the physician is to know the
range of these modifable conditions, land
how to influence them towards the main
tenance of health and the prolongation
of life; the business of the general pub
lie is to give an intelligent assent and a
ready obedience based upon that assent,
to the rules laid down for their guild
ance by such experts. But an intelli-
gent assent is an assent based upon
knowledge, and the knowledge which is
here in question means an acquaintance
with the elements of physiology.
1t is not difficult to acquire such
What is true to Il certain
extent of all the physical sciences is en-
inently characteristic of physiology
the difficulty of the subject begins be-
yond the stage of elementary knowl-
edge, and increases with every stage of
While the most highly train
ed and best furnished intellect may find
all its resources insufficient when it
strives to reach the heights and pene-
trate into the depths of the problems of
the elementary and funda-
mental truths can be made clear to a
child.
No one can have any difficulty in
comprehending the mechanism of circu-
lation or respiration, or the general
mode of operation of the organ of vision;
though the unraveling of all the minutie
of these processes may, for the present,
battle the conjoined attacks of the most
accomplished physicists, chemists, and
mathematician. To know the anatomy
of the human body, with even an APP
Proclamation TO thoroughness, is the work
of life, but as much as is needed for
sound comprehension of elementary
physiological truths may be learned in a
week.
A knowledge of the elements of phys
iology is not only easy of requirement,
hut If may he made n real and nractical