ogy, which removed the seats of disease from the tissues,
as taught by Bichat, to the individual elements, the cells. The
introduction of the use of the microscope in clinical work widened
greatly our powers of diagnosis, and we obtained thereby a very much
clearer conception of the actual processes of disease. In another way,
too, medicine was greatly helped by the rise of experimental pathology,
which had been introduced by John Hunter, was carried along by Magendie
and others, and reached its culmination in the epoch-making researches
of Claude Bernard. Not only were valuable studies made on the action of
drugs, but also our knowledge of cardiac pathology was revolutionized
by the work of Traube, Cohnheim and others. In no direction did the
experimental method effect such a revolution as in our knowledge of the
functions of the brain. Clinical neurology, which had received a great
impetus by the studies of Todd, Romberg, Lockhart Clarke, Duchenne and
Weir Mitchell, was completely revolutionized by the experimental work
of Hitzig, Fritsch and Ferrier on the localization of functions in
the brain. Under Charcot, the school of French neurologists gave great
accuracy to the diagnosis of obscure affections of the brain and spinal
cord, and the combined results of the new anatomical, physiological and
experimental work have rendered clear and definite what was formerly the
most obscure and complicated section of internal medicine. The end of
the fifth decade of the century is marked by a discovery of supreme
importance. Humphry Davy had noted the effects of nitrous oxide. The
exhilarating influence of sulphuric ether had been casually studied, and
Long of Georgia had made patients inhale the vapor until anaesthetic and
had performed operations upon them when in this state; but it was not
until October 16, 1846, in the Massachusetts General Hospital, that
Morton, in a public operating room, rendered a patient insensible with
ether and demonstrated the utility of surgical anaesthesia. The rival
claims of priority no longer interest us, but the occasion is one of
the most memorable in the history of the race. It is well that our
colleagues celebrate Ether Day in Boston--no more precious boon has ever
been granted to suffering humanity.(*)

(*) Cf. Osler: Proc. Roy. Soc. Med., XI, Sect. Hist. Med., pp.
65-69, 1918, or, Annals Med. Hist., N.Y., I, 329-332. Cf. also
Morton's publications reprinted in Camac's book