816 president's address. 



close of the year the Council again took the matter in hand. 

 ApjDlications for the jDosition were invited by advertisement in 

 Britain and in the Colonies. In response nine candidates offered 

 themselves. The applications were referred to the advisory sub- 

 committee to which matters relating to this appointment have 

 throughout been referred, and a selection of two candidates was 

 made. One of these gentlemen was finally appointed l)y the 

 Council at a Special Meeting on the 4th inst. The successful 

 candidate is Mr. R. Greig Smith, B.Sc Edin., M.Sc. Durh., F.C.S., 

 who has for some time filled the position of Lecturer in Agricul- 

 tural Chemistry at the Durham College of Science, Newcastle- 

 upon-Tyne. Mr. Smith comes to us highly recommended from 

 home, and he has had some continental experience in the 

 laboratories of Prof. Stutzer, of Bonn, and of Herr Alfred Jorgen- 

 sen, of Copenhagen, as well as the opportunity of acquiring some 

 knowledge of the manufacture of tuberculin as carried out on 

 a large scale in the laborator}'- of Professor Bang, of Copenhagen. 

 Whether the candidate finally selected should be a Bacteri- 

 ologist with a pathological bias, or one with a physiologico- 

 chemical, a purely biological, or an industrial bias, were questions 

 which obviously could hardly escape notice and considera- 

 tion. As matters turned out these questions were settled by 

 circumstances rather than by the direct intervention of the 

 Council. The essential thing is that the Macleay Bacteriologist 

 should be engaged in doing good work. The encj'cloppedic 

 Presidential Address of Prof. Marshall Ward in the Botanical 

 Section at the recent Meeting of the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science in Toronto makes it abundantly evident 

 that, over and above purely pathological developments, the 

 operations of bacteria in a thousand ways affect us in matters 

 relating to our daily life, our homes, our food and drink, our 

 domestic animals and our industries. So that here, not less than 

 in the field of infectious diseases, there is ample scope for the 

 investigations of the Bacteriologist who is working only with 

 scientific ends in view. 



