1220 



PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 



as people infected by that vapour which causeth the plague are 

 known to do ; therefore, I think it is plain that the most nauseous 

 vapour of itself will not cause any distemper that is epidemical." 



" It seems then, that the plague proceeds from some other cause, 

 and that I suppose to be insects of that extraordinary smallness 

 that they are not to be discerned by the naked eyes ; they are so 

 light that they float in the air, and so are sucked in by the breath. 

 Such insects not being among us commonly, but only when they 

 are either brought to us from some remote place by the wind, or 

 hatched or nourished by some intemperance of air, or from some 

 poisonous vapours, arising from bogs, ponds, ditches, or some such 

 unwholesome funds of stagnating water. 



" The insects are various according to the nature of the water 

 or air they are bred in ; their eggs being first laid by some flying 

 animals which are then hatched and passing through several changes 

 common to insects, at length take wing, and being drawn in with 

 the breath, may perhaps be either killed in our bodies and cause a 

 violent ferment in the juices ; or else finding a proper nourishment 

 they breed in the lungs, stomach, and other parts within in us, 

 and probably may occasion those biles and breakings out in the 

 tender parts of the body that are called plague sores. But these 

 insects, are some of them so exti'emely small that they are only 

 capable of being discerned with good microscopes." 



The following papers wei-e read at the General Monthly 

 Meetings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, during 

 1884:— 



May 7th. — Anniversary Address by the Hon. Professor Smith, 

 C.M.G., &c. &c. 



June 4th. — (a) Paper by Mr. Edwin Lowe, "On Pain and its 

 Causes." 



(b) Paper by Mr. Walter Shellshear, A.M., I.C.E., 

 " On the Removal of Bars from the Entrances 

 to our Rivers." 



