148 The Ohio Naturalist. [Vol. II, No. 2, 



success of the club particularly in the new enterprise of publish- 

 ing a journal ; the other the duty, honor and privilege of pre- 

 paring an address for this occasion. I presume you have all had 

 the experience of contemplating some distance in the future a 

 certain duty, debating the most suitable theme or method, and 

 perhaps seen the time grow shorter and shorter with little real 

 accomplishment. If I were to enumerate the various topics that 

 have come to my mind as suitable for this occasion it would 

 exhaust quite a part of our time ; if I could reproduce the 

 current of thought that has flowed from time to time along the 

 pathways of such topics, I am sure you would experience a 

 weariness that I should regret to occasion. 



The parts of biology which we may make thoroughly our own 

 are very few. It may be profitable, therefore, occasionally to 

 take a general survey of the field to see what its sphere of influ- 

 ence may be, what phases of life are being advanced by its dis- 

 coveries or by the distribution of knowledge which follows. It 

 has seemed to me therefore that it would be appropriate this 

 evening to attempt some such survey of biology, even though it 

 be fragmentary and inadequate. 



For convenience in arrangement we ma}' group this survey 

 along the lines of practical applications of service to mankind, 

 such as occur in medicine, agriculture and kindred industries, 

 domestic and social life, and those which have to do with the 

 acquisition of knowledge and with education. 



Applications of biology in medical science, in agriculture and 

 in domestic life have in many cases assumed such intimate and 

 essential character that we often look upon them as applied 

 sciences more than in any other way. 



While biology has been the foundation of all rational systems 

 of medicine and the constant servant of this most beneficent of 

 human professions, the forms of its uses and the wide reach of 

 its service have so increased in recent years that we almost have 

 excuse in feeling that it is a modern acquisition. 



Could the ancient di.sciples of Esculapius, with their views of 

 physiology and anatomy, have seen the present scope of these 

 subjects and the marvelous results in cure and control of diseases 

 by the discoveries and applications in bacteriology, I doubt if 

 they would have recognized it as any part of their biology. Still 

 harder would it have been to appreciate the relations of malarial 

 parasite, mosquito and man whereby a serious disease in the 

 latter is occasioned. Intimate relations of two kinds of life, as 

 evidenced in the common parasites, must have been familiar from 

 early times and their effects duly recognized, though their means 

 of access and necessary life cycles were long misunderstood. But 

 such relations as are found to exist in the production of malaria, 

 Texas fever and yellow fever have been so recently discovered 



