[ ADAMI] PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 5 
orders of rays, of debates upon the respective value of radium and 
radium emanations. One of the medical members of our Society, Dr. 
Girdwood, was, if I mistake not, the first to employ the principle of 
the stereoscope to X-ray photography, and thereby to determine the 
spatial relationship of the shadows one to the other. 
Since Professor Waller at the British Medical Association meeting 
in Montreal in 1897 gave his demonstration of the alterations in the 
electrical state of the two sides of the body brought about with each 
heart beat, enormous progress has been made in measuring and demon- 
strating theelectrical change inthe living heart andits different chambers, 
so that now we see developing a race of specialists trained to employ 
that most sensitive of all physical instruments, the capillary electro- 
meter. By its use not only may the work of each individual chamber 
of the heart be differentiated, but conditions of abnormal action hitherto 
unrecognized have been brought to light, notably that of auricular 
fibrillation, a condition in which for months ‘and years, it may 
be, the auricles are so thrown out of gear that they play no part in pro- 
pelling the blood, and as a consequence the ventricles do not receive 
the normal stimulus to contraction but are compelled largely to set the 
pace for themselves. We thus are gaining a remarkable increase in 
knowledge of the different types of irregular heart action and their 
significance. But so delicate is the instrument, so large a familiarity 
is requisite with the records obtained, that there must be developed a 
group of specialists devoted to and expert in this one line of work, men 
who have at the same time a profound knowledge of electricity and of 
heart disease. 
If next we turn to the more biological aspects of medicine, we find 
the same forces at work. Strictly speaking Bacteriology, the study of 
bacteria and their habits, is a branch of Botany. Although Ehrenberg 
and Ferdinand Kohn may be said to have founded the systematic study 
of the bacteria, if there be any botanist here he must admit that the 
extraordinary impulse given to observations upon these minute forms 
of life by the discovery that certain of them are the causa causans of 
disease, has brought about the development of Bacteriology as we at 
present know it: that the work accomplished in laboratories devoted 
to medical bacteriology has established the science: that Robert Koch, 
once a simple country practitioner, developed and established the tech- 
nique which now all use, be they agricultural or commercial or medical 
bacteriologists. Here again, so vast has the subject become, so elaborate 
certain procedures, so extensive a training is necessary for proficiency, 
that specialism has become essential. This is particularly the case in 
connection with the application of bacteriological or, more accurately, 
immunilogical methods to diagnosis and treatment. The study of 
