384 Proceedings of the British Association for 1850. 



long been celebrated throughout the world for its medical 

 school. During the last 50 years I have enjoyed the society 

 of many of its most distinguished physicians and surgeons. 

 I have received from them assistance and encouragement 

 in my own researches when that encouragement was of 

 much value ; but I am bound to say, that at no period of 

 the history of the medical art have the members of these 

 two Colleges taken such a high place in their own pro- 

 fession, and in the allied sciences of Chemistry, Natural 

 History, and Botany, as in the present day. The active 

 part which they have taken in the proceedings of this 

 Association, and the noble hospitality which they have ex- 

 tended to it, will never be forgotten while our Institution 

 places upon record the generosity of its friends. In the dis- 

 tribution of praise, it is often unwise, and sometimes unjust, 

 to dispense it individually ; but I feel that my eminent col- 

 leagues around me, and even those whom it may personally 

 affect, will excuse the error I may thus commit, if I name the 

 distinguished President of the College of Surgeons, Professor 

 Syme, who has earned our gratitude by the generous combi- 

 nation of hospitality and science. Scotland had lately occa- 

 sion to lament his absence from her sanitary sphere, but she 

 now welcomes him back from his brief but voluntary exile, to 

 pursue with new ardour the profession which he adorns, and 

 to enjoy in his Tuseulan villa the enviable blessings of social 

 and domestic life. From the present let us now look to the 

 future. From Edinburgh we pass to Ipswich, in the vicinity 

 of the metropolis, where a peculiar combination of circum- 

 stances cannot fail to make the next meeting of the British 

 Association one of high interest. Great numbers of British 

 and of Foreign philosophers may be expected on that occa- 

 sion ; and we are confident that, under the able Presidency 

 of Mr Airey, our illustrious Astronomer Royal, to whom 

 every branch of the physical science owes much deep obliga- 

 tion, the meeting at Ipswich will be one of the most success- 

 ful that has yet been assembled. 



After a cordial and . unanimous vote of thanks to Sir 

 David Brewster, the chief of this eminently successful session 

 of the British Association, the meeting adjourned to Ipswich 

 in 1851. 



