Physician

tending the public schools shall be required
to attend upon such prescribed courses of in-
struction.

Similar courses of instruction shall be pre-
scribed and maintained in private schools in
the State, and all pupils in such schools over
8 years of age shall attend upon such courses.
Whenever the Regents shall adopt recom-
mendations of the Military Training Commis-
sion in relation to the establishment in elemen-
tary and secondary schools, of habits, cus-
toms, and methods adapted to the develop-
ment of correct physical posture and bearing,
mental and physical alertness, self-control, dis-
ciplined initiative, sense of duty and spirit of
cooperation under leadership, as provided in
the military law, the Regents shall prescribe
and enforce such rules as may be necessary to
carry into effect the recommendations so
adopted. The plan devised by the Military
Commission was adopted by the Regents on
Oct. 19, 1916. Its main provisions include:

Individual health examination and personal
health instruction; setting-up drills of at least
two minutes* duration at the beginning of
each class period, or at least four times every
school day; talks on hygiene; supervised rec-
reation, organized play, and athletics; gym-
nastic drills, 60 minutes a week under direc-
tion of special teacher of physical training.
See GYMNASTICS; TRACK AND FIELD ATHLE-
TICS ; MILITARY TRAINING IN THE SCHOOLS.

Physician. Sec Medical Practitioner.

Physicians, Royal College of, the prin-
cipal chartered medical body in England, was
founded through the instrumentality of Thom-
as Linacre, who obtained, by his interest with
Cardinal Wolsey, letters patent from Henry
vm., dated 1518.

Physick, Philip Syng (1768-1837), Am-
erican physician, called 'the father of Ameri-
can surgery,' was bom in Philadelphia, Pa. In
1805 he was appointed to the newly establish-
ed chair of surgery at the University of Penn-
sylvania, and in 1819 became professor of
anatomy, retaining this position until 1831. In
1825 he was elected first American member of
the French Academy of Medicine. Many nov-
el instruments and improved methods were
introduced by him into surgical work.

Physic Nut (Curcas), a genus of plants
of the order Euphorbiacese, having alternate,
stalked, angled or lobed leaves, and corymbs
of flowers on long stalks. The seeds abound in
an acrid fixed oil which makes them power-
fully emetic and purgative, or in large doses
poisonous,

3726 ______________________Physiology

Physics, that department of science which
is concerned with the fundamental laws of the
material universe. These laws are best studied
by means of the simpler configurations which
constitute inanimate nature; but the same
laws are found to hold for organic nature, al-
though the complexities of function and struc-
ture associated with life add enormously to
the difficulty of following in detail the action
of these physical laws. The broad distinction
between chemistry and physics is that the
former science considers more particularly the
molecular changes of matter; but the two
branches of science overlap, so that it is not
possible to draw a clear line of division be-
tween them. The various branches of physics
are treated under separate headings, such as
HEAT; LIGHT; SOUND; ELECTRICITY.

Physiocrat, the name now usually applied
to the French economists of the i8th century.
The founder and leader of the school was
Francois Quesnay (1694-1774), a French phy-
sician and economist. This school held that
land is the source of all wealth, and agricul-
ture the only industry that increases wealth.
Since agriculture provides the sole revenue of
a country, it was held that the state should
claim from the landowner and the farmer all
the contributions it required. See ECONOMICS.

Physiognomy, the art or science of judg-
ing of the character from the external appear-
ance, especially from the countenance. The
art is founded upon the belief, which has long
and generally prevailed, that there is an ulti-
mate connection between the features and ex-
pression of the face and the qualities and hab-
its of the mind. See CRIMINOLOGY; ANTHROP-
OLOGY.

Physiography, a term understood to in-
volve a compendious discussion of gravitation,
heat, the composition of the crust of the
earth, the movements of the sea, the phenom-
ena of the atmosphere, and many cognate sub-
jects, treated in this work under separate
heads. See EARTH; GEOGRAPHY; GEOLOGY;
GEOMORPHOLOGY; GEODYNAKICS; ATMO-
SPHERE.

Physiology, as contrasted with Anatomy,
which deals with organic structure, is con-
cerned with the functions of living organisms,
and with those laws or principles upon which
vital processes and life itself depend. While
all living organisms, be they plants or animals,
are ultimately composed of inorganic matter,
they are sharply differentiated from the non-
living by the possession of certain faculties or
processes, During life the organism is a center