The System of Animate Nature (Volume 2); The Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of St. Andrews in the Years 1915 and 1916

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1920. Excerpt: ... LECTURE XX. VIS MEDICATKIX NATUILE. 1. Biological Aspects of the Healing Power of Nature. 2. Psychological Aspects of the Healing Power of Nature. 3. Correspondence in Animate Nature to our Ideals of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good. 4. Humanist Value of the Study of Animate Evolution. 5. Scientific Description of Animate Nature Not Inconsistent with Religious Interpretation. 1. Biological Aspects of the Healing Power of Nature. In many different ways Man has realised the healing power of Nature--vis medicatrix Naturae--and all of them are instructive. One might refer, for instance, to the healing virtues in many natural substances, both animal and vegetable, some of which are extraordinarily quaint. It has been re-discovered in modern times that more than one snake carries in its gall-bladder a sure antidote to its own venom. Is not the old advice that the coward should eat of the heart of a lion, so that he might be brave, echoed in the modern treatment of a cretinoid child with the thyroid gland of a sheep? Is it not like a leaf out of an old book of magic to read that an enlightened use of pituitary extract enabled a successful examinee to add in a short time to his height the couple of inches that were required in order to secure a post for which he had proved himself otherwise eligible? It looks as if by taking sufficient thought one might be able to add a cubit to one's stature. Interesting too is the reparatory power exhibited by many living creatures. One of the Big Trees or Sequoias which was a seedling in 271 B.c, suffered a burn three feet wide when it was 516 years old, and spent 105 years in folding its living tissues over the wound. When it was killed at the age of 2,171 years, a Methu...