The history of our knowledge regarding the functions of the kidney: submitted for the Wellcome Prize in the History of Medicine, 1936

Our knowledge of the functions of the kidneys has thus developed parallel with the rise and growth of other branches of science and of the human mind. It has developed from the mystical folk -lore such as we have seen in the Bible to a complicated mass of knowledge based on innumerable investigations, which have drawn from every field of science and utilised every natural force to solve the problem of the nature and functions of the kidney. In our present state of knowledge, despite the factor of various controversies, we feel that we must be very near the truth; yet perhaps even the Greeks in their day possessed the same feeling of satisfaction, unaware, and never even thinking of the development of modern lines of investigation. Perhaps the future may open up avenues of approach which we too have not even dreamt of, which may shatter or substantiate our knowledge