There has been much recent commentary on integration in health care professional education. This commentary is of importance to physiology education as integration often touches on integration between preclinical and clinical sciences. There are different forms of integration, from horizontal to vertical to spiral, and different theories underpin the thinking about integration, from constructivism to situated learning to transformative learning. Where will all these ideas take physiology education? While it is impossible to look into the future, it is possible to look at the past and, sometimes, to learn lessons or take inspiration from the past. If now is a time of change in health care professional education more broadly and physiology education specifically, then there have also been equivalent periods of change in the past. One such period was the first half of the 20th century, when the rapid growth in scientific knowledge forced a rethink in how education could and should be provided. Midway through this period, Henry Dale delivered the Presidential Address, introductory to a discussion in the Section of Physiology, at the Centenary Meeting of the British Medical Association, in London, in 1932. The speech was on the relation of physiology to medicine, in research and education. In this short article, Kieran Walsh has conducted documentary research on Dale's speech and analyzed it from a positivist perspective. The positivist approach "is a quantitative one--it is based on the premise that all reliable sources of knowledge are based on logical and rational evidence or science. The positivist approach suggests that in research we should adhere closely to what we can objectively view and quantify". The speech touches on both research and education; however, Walsh has concentrated on that part of the speech that concentrates on education.