ADDRESS BEFORE THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 43 



published the results of his latest, though let us hope not his last, work 

 during the present year. 



Amongst our countrymen, and belonging to the generation which 

 has almost passed away, was William Bowman. His investigations be- 

 tween 1840 and 1850 on the mucous membranes, muscular fiber and 

 the structure of the kidney, together with his researches on the organs 

 of sense, were characterized by a power of observation and of inter- 

 preting difficult and complicated appearances which has made his 

 memoirs on these subjects landmarks in the history of histological in- 

 quiry. 



Of the younger generation of biologists, Francis Maitland Balfour, 

 whose early death is deeply deplored as a loss to British science, was 

 one of the most distinguished. His powers of observation and philo- 

 sophic perception gave him a high place as an original inquirer, and the 

 charm of his personality — for charm is not the exclusive possession of 

 the fairer sex — endeared him to his friends. 



GENERAL MOEPHOLOGY. 



Along with the study of the origin and structure of the tissues of 

 organized bodies, much attention has been given during the century to 

 the parts or organs in plants and animals, with the view of determining 

 where and how they take their rise, the order of their formation, the 

 changes which they pass through in the early stages of development and 

 their relative positions in the organism to which they belong. Investi- 

 gations on these lines are spoken of as morphological, and are to be dis- 

 tinguished from the study of their physiological or functional relations, 

 though both are necessary for the full comprehension of the living 

 organism. 



The first to recognize that morphological relations might exist be- 

 tween the organs of a plant, dissimilar as regards their function, was the 

 poet, Goethe, whose observations, guided by his imaginative faculty, led 

 him to declare that the calyx, corolla and other parts of a flower, the 

 scales of a bulb, etc., were metamorphosed leaves, a principle generally 

 accepted by botanists, and, indeed, extended to other parts of a plant, 

 which are referred to certain common morphological forms, although 

 they exercise different functions. Goethe also applied the same prin- 

 ciple in the study of the skeletons of vertebrate animals, and he formed 

 the opinion that the spinal column and the skull were essentially alike 

 in construction, and consisted of vertebras, an idea which was also in- 

 dependently conceived and advocated by Oken. 



The anatomist who in our country most strenuously applied himself 

 to the morphological study of the skeleton was Eichard Owen, whose 

 knowledge of animal structure, based upon his own dissections, was un- 

 rivaled in range and variety. He elaborated the conception of an ideal. 



