56 President's Address. [Feb. 



several works which he had already commenced, rather than started a new 

 publication. But we heartily welcome at the same time the issue of ' Stray 

 Feathers.' It promises to he a useful catalogue of the Editor's very nohle 

 collection of Indian Birds, and a means of rapid publication of novelties or 

 corrections, always of much value with ornithologists. 



During the year also a very admirably illustrated work on the deadly 

 Snakes of India has been issued at the cost of Government. The beautiful 

 plates which are given with Dr. Fayrer's treatise on the Thanatophidia must 

 always command attention and recommend the work, while unfortunately 

 they also add so very seriously to the cost of the book as entirely to preclude 

 the chance of its ever getting into the hands of any but the wealthy. The 

 work too does not pretend to be more than a practical statement of facts con- 

 cerning these dangerous enemies to human existence in the country. It has 

 no scientific novelties or discoveries to render it important as a work of 

 reference in libraries, while as we have said it is locked up from the general 

 public to whom it might be useful by the extreme cost. Could not all the 

 information be given in a far more accessible form and at a very trifling 

 cost ? 



Other matters of high interest have been brought before the public, 

 though not immediately through the Society. One of the most important 

 and probably fruitful discoveries of modern years in Physiology has 

 appeared in the modest form of an appendix to the eighth report of 

 the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India. This is the 

 discovery by Dr. Lewis of a Haematozoon, inhabiting the human blood, 

 and certainly accompanying, and in all probability causing, peculiar con- 

 ditions of the secretions, frequently rapidly fatal and always exceedingly 

 injurious to health. This is scarcely the place to discuss the details of such 

 a discovery which, bringing into notice a diseased condition hitherto totally 

 unknown, and in all probability opening the road to further discoveries 

 regarding obscure diseases, especially affecting countries situated as we here 

 are within the tropics, opens up an entirely new but most important 

 enquiry. 



The careful researches of Dr. Lewis associated with his able colleague 

 Dr. Cunningham into the history and concomitant conditions of chole- 

 raic affections, must be well known to most of our members. And I have 

 no hesitation in saying that the last contribution of these gentlemen 

 published in the same report I have alluded to, adds largely to the mass 

 of facts, bearing on this, to India, all important subject. The accuracy with 

 which every appearance is sifted, and the evidence investigated, before it be 

 admitted as a fact, and the fulness of the information sought and obtained, 

 will render the entire series of these admirably conceived and executed 

 microscopical enquiries, altogether essential to the study of this malignant 



