1912] The Gawnont Sfeak'mg Cinematograph Films. 479 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, May 10, 1912. 



His Grace the Duke of Northumberland, K.G. P.C. D.C.L. 

 LL.D. P.R.S., President, in the Chair. 



Professor W. Stirling, M.D.(Edin.) LL.D. D.Sc., Professor 

 of Physiology, University of Manchester. 



The Gaumont Speaking Cinematograph Films. 

 (Illustrated by the aid of Mons. Gaumont.) 



Johannes Mijller, one of the greatest physiologists of last cen- 

 tury, when considering the time factor in nervous processes, was so 

 impressed with the inherent difficulties of the question, that lie said, 

 " We shall probably never attain the power of measuring the velocity 

 of nervous action, for we have no opportunity of comparing its pro- 

 pagation through immense space as we have in the case of light." As 

 is often the case, when the forecast is darkest, light is near. 



Shortly after this forecast was published, one of Midler's own 

 pupils, Hermann Helmholtz, solved the problem on two inches of a 

 frog's nerve attached to a living muscle — an epoch-making experi- 

 ment of immense importance in nerve physiology. Thanks to ad- 

 vances in technique we can now measure not only the velocity of a 

 nervous impulse but also the rapidity, or rather the slowness of the 

 act of thinking, as well as the speed of vocalisation and articulation — 

 also the time it takes to think, to will, and to execute any particular 

 co-ordinate movement, be it of a limb or of the vocal organs them- 

 selves, in response to an adequate stimulus applied to the skin, eye, 

 ear, or other sense-organ. 



As correlation and accuracy of time-adjustment are important 

 factors in the demonstration, which I shall have the honour of pre- 

 senting to you to-night, it may be interesting to recall an historical 

 event in the varied career of Charles V. 



Having tired of King Craft, like some others of eccentric tenden- 

 cies, the Emperor beguiled his leisure with horology and the study 

 of clocks. After making valiant though unsatisfactory attempts to 

 co-ordinate and synchronise three clocks, it at last dawned upon His 

 Majesty that he had wasted much time and energy in trying to 

 co-ordinate the irreconcilable and turbulent political factors in his 

 own kingdom. 



