[Division and specialization of the Western European physiology]

The 19th century has been thought to be the turning point that the experimental method began to take strong root as the core to solve many physiological subjects, and the discipline of physiology got firmly fixed as the specialized one in the western Europe. Authors found the following characteristics in the process of the division and specialization of the 19th century western physiology. 1) It was the process of its separation from the discipline of anatomy that was necessary in the development of physiology as the independent, specialized division. Newly grown ideas, that there were working functions specialized study, were the important background and basis of the development of physiology as the specialized discipline. 2) It was not until the force and influence of the metaphysical concept on the living things (vitalism) grew weak that physiology could become the specialized discipline. The new materialistic concept about living things made it possible for the researchers of that time to apply the physico-chemical method in the study of physiological problems. 3) Institutionalization of the physiological research and education accelerated its development and specialization. The followings appeared in the mid-19th century: specialized professorship, division as the separated subject in the undergraduated medical school curriculum, laboratory settings for the purpose of physiological study, establishment of independent academic societies and publication of their own journals. Two main factors, namely, both the settlement of the new physiological thought and method of the very scientific nature and the institutionalization within the academic and medical societies, exerted influences on each other in the ground of the 19th century western Europe. Through that process, the discipline of physiology took root deep as the independent specialized division in the societies of science and medicine.