History of Science 2220 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Teleology, Experimental Physiology, Scientific Method
2 May 2018
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Chapter 3 Notes: History of Physiology
❖ Physiology is the study of the function of living beings.
o ‘physiology,’ derived from Greek, means the study of nature.
- From a medical perspective, it stands both in relation and in opposition to anatomy, the
study of structure.
- It was used infrequently in antiquity by Galen and others; however, in modern times, it came
to represent a separate discipline with well-defined methods.
- Attempts to identify and classify the fundamental properties of life by answering the question,
What is life?
- In the practice of analysing life, the functions of living beings have always been divided into
smaller tasks, each a physiological process in itself.
Four Recurrent Themes
1. Concepts of life: Mechanism and Vitalism.
a. Mechanism is the reduction of life to physical and chemical forces (sometimes called
materialism), which defines all existence in terms of tangible matter.
b. Vitalism is the view that life is governed by forces peculiar only to living beings – forces
which can- not be reduced to physical laws.
i. The ‘life force’ of vitalism has often been associated with theological notions of
spirit or soul, and its proponents have sometimes been devoutly religious.
ii. But this vital force of physiologists should not be equated with divine spirits.
c. Neither mechanism nor vitalism satisfies all explanatory problems. When one mode of
thinking dominates, a reactive swing back toward the other usually follows.
2. Method of inquiry: the relationship between Teleology and Empiricism.
a. Teleology ‘the doctrine of first [or final] causes,’ refers to knowledge of purpose: the
reason why something exists or happens; such questioning leads to the meaning of life
and the possible existence of higher powers.
b. Empiricism refers to knowledge obtained through ‘pure’ observation without theoretical
bias of higher purpose.
c. Both methods deal with cause and effect. But teleology implies confidence in knowing
the ultimate reason or purpose for a certain function; it therefore governs experiments
and conclusions. Empirical methods, on the other hand, are supposedly confined only
to observed events and their immediate (and equally observable) causes; they strive to
control conditions and ignore higher purposes.
d. Teleology was more influential in antiquity than it is today; a few centuries ago, it was
devalued by scientists who preferred empirical methods and explanations as they
established principles for experimentation on life. Virtually every problem in physiology
could be reformulated with the question ‘Why?’ But the search for purpose is no longer
the overtly stated aim of scientific experiments. Rather, the scientific method now
purports to explore ‘how’ and confines experiments to observation of events in natural
or manipulated environments (see positivism, below).
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3. The relationship between speculation and experimentation
(connects directly with #1& #2)
a. Speculation, often called ‘armchair physiology,’ refers to the style of physiology practised
until modern times; it prized reasoning and observation over experimentation.
b. The experimental
method
is relatively modern, but physiological experiments have been
conducted for at least two thousand years.
4. The rise of physiology as a separate discipline/profession
a. In antiquity, a physiologist was most likely to be a philosopher. After the sixteenth
century, a physiologist was an anatomist, or perhaps a doctor. In the nineteenth century,
separate chairs and new departments of physiology were founded. Now, physiology is its
own unique discipline with institutes, societies, journals, chairs, departments, and
conferences.
An Overview of the History of Physiology
❖ Throughout most of human history, physiology was far more important to medicine than
was anatomy.
o Structure had little to do with concepts of disease, nor was it essential for explaining
how bodies work
- The Greeks used the four humors to explain life functions: black bile, yellow bile, phlegm,
and blood.
- The four humours were related, and combined the characteristics of, the four elements in
the Greek ‘periodic table’: earth, air, fire, and water.
- This theory can be found I the works of many ancient writers like Hippocrates and Galen
- The ancient Greeks also created a life force (
enhormonta
, or
pneuma)
that permeated and
sustained living beings.
Galenic understanding of nutrition and circulation: Food is consumed, absorbed, and transformed
in the liver into blood with natural spirit (
pneuma physicon
). It passes to the lung, where it is imbued
with air or vital spirit (
pneuma zoticon
). It then flows outward, in both arteries and veins, to all the
organs including the brain, which adds animal spirit (
pneuma psychicon
), the source of motion. The
health of an individual depends on the balance of humours and the strength of the life forces
Galen imagined that blood constantly flowed outward from the heart, like water in an irrigation ditch.
To make the concept ‘work,’ he assumed the existence of pores in the heart.
▪ Because human dissections were largely forbidden during this time, Galen was easily
mistaken
Galen was not an ‘armchair physiologist’; he performed many experiments on animals to determine
the relative importance of the brain, heart, lungs, and liver.
Writings featured a teleological framework– he attributed certain specific faculties to each body part:
attractive, retentive, alterative, repulsive, or eliminative.
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Document Summary
Physiology is the study of the function of living beings. Physiology," derived from greek, means the study of nature. From a medical perspective, it stands both in relation and in opposition to anatomy, the study of structure. It was used infrequently in antiquity by galen and others; however, in modern times, it came to represent a separate discipline with well-defined methods. Attempts to identify and classify the fundamental properties of life by answering the question, In the practice of analysing life, the functions of living beings have always been divided into smaller tasks, each a physiological process in itself. But teleology implies confidence in knowing the ultimate reason or purpose for a certain function; it therefore governs experiments and conclusions. Virtually every problem in physiology could be reformulated with the question why?" but the search for purpose is no longer the overtly stated aim of scientific experiments. After the sixteenth century, a physiologist was an anatomist, or perhaps a doctor.
