Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PHYLOGENETIC ASSOCIATION IN RELATION TO CERTAIN MEDICAL PROBLEMS. The discovery of the anesthetic properties of ether and its practical application to surgery must always stand as one of the great achievements of medicine. It is eminently fitting that the anniversary of that notable day, when the possibilities of ether were first made known to the world, should be celebrated within these walls, and whatever the topic of your Ether Day orator, he must fittingly first pause to pay tribute to that great event and to the master surgeons of the Massachusetts General Hospital. On this occasion, on behalf of the dumb animals as well as on behalf of suffering humanity, I express a deep sense of gratitude for the blessings of anesthesia. Two years ago an historical appreciation of the discovery of ether was here presented by Professor Welch, and last year an address on medical research was given by President Eliot. I, therefore, will not attempt a general address, but will present an experimental and clinical research. Time will permit the presentation of only the summaries of the large amount of data. The great assistance rendered by my associates, Dr. D. H. Dolley, Dr. H. G. Sloan, Dr. J. B. Austin and Dr. M. L. Mentenf, I acknowledge with gratitude. Address delivered at the Massachusetts General Hospital on the sixty-fourth anniversary of Ether Day, Oct. 15, 1910. fProm H. K. Cushing Laboratory of Experimental Medicine, Western Reserve University, Cleveland. The scope of the title of this paper may be explained by a concrete example. When a barefoot boy steps on a sharp stone there is an immediate discharge of nervous energy in his effort at escape from the wounding stone. This is not a voluntary act. It is not due to his own personal experience (i.e., his ontogeny), b...