1885.] NEW-YORK MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 83 



made. They would, no doubt, remember that the great sup- 

 porter of Abiogenesis, Dr. Bastian, relied upon the appearance 

 of organisms in flasks which had been exposed to high temper- 

 atures ; but Dr. Dallinger had shown that though the organisms 

 might be destroyed, the spores could still exist under these con- 

 ditions. He quite agreed that the two sides of the question — 

 pathogenic and morphological — should be studied separately, 

 and that the observations in the latter case should be carried out 

 in the way adopted by the President by isolating and keeping the 

 object continuously under observation until its whole life-history 

 had been ascertained ; but the pathogenic aspect was also of 

 great importance, and must be worked out with similar care. 

 Dr. Roberts, of Manchester, who was not only a very careful 

 observer, but also a man of very large experience in diseases, 

 wrote a paper some time ago entirely on Darwinian lines, and 

 he there took some very striking examples, such as the produc- 

 tion of the bitter almond from the sweet almond, the one being 

 perfectly wholesome, but the other containing a powerful poison. 

 He had himself always maintained that in the study of species it 

 was necessary to study the intermediate forms as well as the com- 

 plete forms, and had carried this out with great advantage in the 

 case of the orbitolites thirty years ago. Just so he believed the 

 study of the intermediate forms of disease to be necessary. A 

 short time ago he wrote a paper bearing on this subject in the 

 Nineteenth Century, and since then he had received a great num- 

 ber of letters in which many instances had been adduced show- 

 ing that there had been intermediate stages of disease. He 

 desired most heartily to congratulate the Society and also the 

 President upon the admirable and successful work which he had 

 described to them, and upon the completeness of the life-history 

 which he had been able to give them as the results of work, 

 moreover, which extended over a period of four years. As was 

 well known, he (Dr. Carpenter) had always spoken strongly of 

 the value of thorough and continuous work on one subject. 

 There was a great deal of good microscopical power running to 

 waste, for the simple reason that the owners of the instruments 

 gave themselves up to a kind of dilettante study, instead of con- 

 centrating their attention. Their President had shown them 

 what was the value of close continuous work, and no better en- 

 couragement could be given to the younger members of the So- 



