154 Transactions of the Society. 



have been the months, which since then have lengthened into years 

 of varying struggle, that it is not amiss sometimes to look back 

 and recapitulate the events of those early days. The Retreat from 

 Mons was already a thing of the past, and on the 6th September 

 we had begun to breathe more fully with the commencement of 

 the Battle of the Marne, followed ])y that of the Aisne on the 

 16th. But Antwerp had fallen on the 9th October, and the day 

 before we met (on the 20th) Death had begun to ply his sickle with 

 renewed fury in the flower of Britain's manhood at Ypres. We 

 met, it seemed to me at the time, as it were, in an atmosphere of 

 dream — of nightmare — for the opening acts of the German Army 

 had fulfilled the promise of their Emperor to " stagger humanity." 

 It seemed as though, with the savage and sacreligious humour that 

 has distinguished many of his declarations, he was echoing the 

 words put by Milton into the mouth of the Arch-Fiend : — 



" ' Honour and Empire, with revenge enlarged 

 By conquering this new world, compels me now 

 To do what else, though damned, I should abhor.' 



So spake the Fiend, and with Necessity, 

 The Tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds." — (IV., 390). 



Few of us probably remember to-day that on that 21st October 

 we were to have held a Conversazione, one of a series that had bidden 

 fair to go far towards consolidating both the social and scientific 

 sides of our Society's activity. In the absence of our President, 

 Dr. Sims Woodhead, I had the honour of presiding over the 

 Meeting on this occasion, and it fell to me to announce the post- 

 ponement of that Conversazione — few, if any of us, realized for 

 how long. It was difficult to adumbrate at that time the extent 

 to which the necessarily individual efforts of Fellows of the Society 

 would or could be thrown into the struggle before us. It was for 

 Dr. "Woodhead to observe in the following January : " We go into 

 this fight with a magnificent fighting force ; to be efficient that 

 force must be healthy. It must be well fed, it must be protected 

 from disease, and its wounded must be well cared for. How much 

 of the knowledge, the application of which ensures all this, do we 

 owe to the Microscope ? " 



The ensuing three years were destined to be pregnant with 

 circumstances in which the specialized knowledge of individual 

 Fellows was to become of vital importance to the nation. I have 

 no hesitation in saying that every such juncture has produced a 

 Man. On that first occasion, before the scientific resources of the 

 Empire had been sorted out, marshalled and organized, the Man 

 was to the fore, and I look back to the fact with pride, as the first 

 episode in our Society's grapple with forthcoming events. The 

 Man was James Wilson Ogilvy, who came to the Council Meeting 

 with a plan ready cut and dried, the successful execution of which 



