Presidential Address. 157 



It was, therefore, with feelings something akin to awe that we 

 met on the 17th February to hear Dr. Sims Woodhead's Presidential 

 Address " On some of the Microbiological Problems of the Present 

 War." That address — reading it to-day in the light of later and 

 bitter experiences — throws a significant light upon the then really 

 commencing War -work of many of our most active and prominent 

 Fellows. The President referred to the preventive inoculation 

 against enteric fever associated with the name of our Fellow, Sir 

 Almroth Wright, and dealt with the origin of, and remedies for, 

 frost-bite, which by that time was looming large in the medical 

 history of the War. He explained the rapid sterilization of water 

 by the use of hypochlorous acid as a preventive of typhoid fever, 

 cholera, and bacillary dysentery, and it is satisfactory to-day to 

 reflect that some of the problems connected with the life-history 

 of the meningococcus which he adumbrated have been solved by 

 the researches of himself and his fellow-labourers. 



The War-work of individual Fellows finds no published 

 expression in our Transactions for that year for two obvious and 

 unanswerable reasons. In the first place, the work of our Society's 

 Fellows was primarily of a nature which could not be published 

 during the War, and in the second, they had no time to write. We 

 met from month to month, the dates of our Meetings being punc- 

 tuated by great happenings which have formed landmarks in history. 

 Air-raids by Zeppelin and Aeroplane had become " incidents of our 

 job," as King Humbert remarked to his aide-de-camp, when he 

 narrowly escaped assassination on the Pincian Hill. On the day 

 of our March Meeting our blockade of Germany began ; in April 

 our casualties had reached the total of 140,000, and the Govern- 

 ment had decided only the day before that universal military 

 service was neither necessary iior desirable. When we met on the 

 19th of May, the world had been staggered again by a new feature 

 in warfare — the use of poisonous gas at the front (and, in the 

 opinion of some, of a considerable amount of " poison gas " at 

 home), and by the sinking of the " Lusitania." But a few days 

 before the Meeting we had decided to intern alien enemies in this 

 country. Three days later Italy joined the Allies, in the midst of 

 one of the most severe crises of the war. 



During the recess of 1915 Bulgaria declared against us. Lord 

 Selborne told us that the submarine menace " M^as well in hand," 

 and by the time we meet on November 17th Serbia was virtually 

 annihilated. The day of our December Meeting, the 15th, was 

 marked by the retirement of Sir John French and the assumption 

 of the command of our armies by Sir Douglas Haig ; and General 

 Townshend had retired to Ivut-el-Amara. 



On January the 19th in 1916 I occupied this Chair for the first 

 time as President. Gallipoli had been evacuated, and Montenegro 

 over-run, and I am informed that some of our critics have com- 



