toward the establishment of medicine on a scientific basis. I need hardly say they could not have been made except for the advance of normal biology.
There can be no question, then, as to the nature or the value of the connection between medicine and the biological sciences. There can be no doubt that the future of pathology and of therapeutics, and therefore that of practical medicine, depends upon the extent to which those who occupy themselves with these subjects are trained in the methods and impregnated with the fundamental truths of biology.
And, in conclusion, I venture to suggest that the collective sagacity of this congress could occupy itself with no more important question than with this: How is medical education to be arranged, so that, without entangling the student in those details of the systematist which are valueless to him, he may be enabled to obtain a firm grasp of the great truths respecting animal and vegetable life, without which, notwithstanding all the progress of scientific medicine, he will still find himself an empiric?
| PROGRESS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF STEEL.[1] |
By Professor A. K. HUNTINGTON.
IMPROVEMENTS in the arts and sciences have gradually modified the methods of producing iron and steel, and, in their turn, the arts and sciences have felt the reaction; for all improvements in the manufacture of iron and steel have consisted, not so much in the production of a better quality of the article, as in the cheapening of production by the application of the principles indicated by the progress of science, and by the use of superior machinery. The direct result of this cheapening has been to extend the applications of the products in the arts.
The discovery of steel appears to have naturally followed that of the means of reducing iron from its ore. In all primitive methods of iron-smelting, steel, in more or less quantity, is inevitably produced. Such methods have been carried on in India and Africa from time immemorial to the present day. A furnace of a similar primitive character has, for several centuries, been employed in Catalonia, in Spain.
In working this furnace, the ore is crushed by the hammer, and divided by sifting into lumps (mine) and very coarse powder (greillade). The furnace being still red-hot from the last operation, it is filled with charcoal nearly to the tuyère, the hearth is then divided at a point about two thirds distance from the tuyère into two parts by a broad shovel; on the blast-side a further quantity of char-
- ↑ Abridged from an address delivered before the London Society of Arts.
