10 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



Human proportion in art and anthropometry. Dr. Robert Fletcher, 

 U. S. A. March 31. 



Dr. D. W. Prentiss, of Washington, delivered, by invitation, a course 

 of lectures in connection with the department of Materia Medica of the 

 National Museum. The lectures were illustrated by specimens and 

 other material from the collections selected for that purpose by Dr. Flint, 

 curator of the department of Materia Medica. The following was the 

 programme : 



Lecture I. — Introductory : Remarks upon the general plan of the 

 National Museum. Description of the Materia Medica department ; its 

 high value for the purpose of study. Classification and arrangement. 



Lecture II. — On the classification of medicinal forms : Illustrated by 

 specimens. Exhibition of microscopical sections. 



Lecture III. — Opium : Its value as a medicine. Cultivation and 

 statistics of consumption. In legitimate medicine. In patent medi- 

 cines. In opium habit. Exhibition of specimens. 



Lecture IV. — Cinchona : Natural history and sources. Native for- 

 ests. Cultivation. Artificial quinine. Alkaloids. Exhibition of 

 specimens. 



Lecture V. — Vegetable cathartics: Rhubarb, aloes, senna, manna, 

 colocynth, elaterium. Exhibition of specimens. 

 w Lecture VI. — Vegetable cathartics : Jalap, scammony, gamboge, cro- 

 ton oil, podophyllum. Exhibition of specimens. 



Lecture VII. — Vegetable astringents : Tannic acid, gallic acid, nut- 

 galls, catechu, kino, krameria, logwood. Exhibition of specimens. 



Lecture VIII. — Animal products used in medicine : Cantharis (Span- 

 ish fly), coccus cacti (cochineal), castoreum (castor), moschus (musk), 

 fel tauri (ox bile), ichthyocolla (isinglass). Exhibition of specimens. 



On the completion of the lectures by Dr. Prentiss, a number of per- 

 sons who profited by the occasion addressed a formal letter of thanks 

 to the Institution. 



The annual address of Major Powell, the retiring president of the 

 Philosophic Society of Washington, to which the members of the An- 

 thropological and Biological Societies were invited, was held in the lect- 

 ure-room of the Museum on the 8th day of December. On this oc- 

 casion the room was lighted by the Brush-Swan storage-battery system, 

 supplied by the dynamo machine lent to the Institution indefinitely by 

 the Brush Company, of Cleveland. Several exhibitions of this light 

 had previously been made in the lecture-room under the direction of 

 Mr. A. A. Hayes, and the plant was left in the room for any subsequent 

 demand that might be made upon it. 



The Biological Society has held regular fortnightly meetings in the 

 Museum lecture-room. 



On the 26th and 27th of February an exhibition was held of the col- 

 lections about to be sent to the Fisheries Exhibition in London, which 

 attracted large crowds of interested spectators. 



