[ 408 ] 

 LXVIII. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



ROYAL SOCIETY. 



Anniversary Meeting, December 1, 184.5. 



THE Marquis of Northampton in the Chair. 

 The noble President stated that the two Royal Medals had 

 been adjudged by the Council to the Astronomer Royal, for his In- 

 quiries into the Tides on the Coast of Ireland ; to Mr. Beck, for his 

 Investigation of the Nerves of the Uterus*; and the Copley Medal 

 to Prof. Schwann, for his valuable work On the Analogies of Vege- 

 tables and Animals. 



After presenting the Medals, the President proceeded to the bio- 

 graphical notices of some of the deceased members, from which we 

 .Hect the following: — 



L»^. William Heberden, the son of the eminent and accom- 

 plished author of the ' Commentaries on the History and Cure of 

 Diseases.' was born in London in the year 1767. At the early age 

 of seven, he was sent to school at the Charter House, and appears to 



* The report of the Committee of Physiology on the claims of Mr. Beck's 

 paper to the award of the Medal, is as follows : — 



" The paper of Mr. Beck contains the result of an elaborate anatomical 

 investigation of the Nerves of the Uterus, together with observations on 

 the structure and connexions of the sympathetic nerve. 



" By his researches the author has cleared up various points concerning 

 the nerves of the uterus whiqh have hitherto been doubtful or misunder- 

 stood. -He has determined more precisely than heretofore the source and 

 mode of distribution of these nerves, and the real extent to which the organ 

 is supplied with them. The true nature of the nervous ganglia at the neck 

 of the uterus, and of the plexuses formed by the sympathetic and sacral 

 nerves in the same situation, is also satisfactorily made out, as well as the 

 fact that the branches derived from the sacral nerves are not destined for 

 the uterus, but are distributed to adjacent organs. 



"With regard to the sympathetic nerve, it is shown that there are both 

 grey and white separate branches of communication between that nerve and 

 the spinal nerves. This important fact has, it is true, been already pointed 

 out in the recently published work of Todd and Bowman, but the author 

 of the paper has nevertheless the merit of arriving at it independently, by 

 his own observations. He has further shown that the white and grey con- 

 stituents of the nerve keep distinct from each other, not only in the so- 

 called trunk of the sympathetic, but also in its primary branches, as far as 

 the visceral ganglia, beyond which the white and grey parts become inter- 

 mixed in the nerves distributed to the viscera. The precise mode of con- 

 nexion of the white and grey communicating branches with the spinal 

 nerves is also carefully investigated. These observations appear important 

 as tending to throw light on the constitution of the sympathetic nerve and 

 its relation to the rest of the nervous system. 



" The Committee consider the paper of Mr. Beck as a most valuable 

 contribution to the Anatomy of the nervous system, and as affording addi - 

 tional and more precise data for physiological reasoning respecting the 

 nerves to which it refers. On these grounds, as well as on account of the 

 consummate skill and devoted perseverance displayed by the author in his 

 arduous investigations, they have recommended that his paper be rewarded 

 •with the Royal Medal." 



