PHYSICS AND NATURAL HISTORY OF GENEVA. 271 
The foregoing is but a colorless sketch of the transactions of the Society 
during the year which terminates to-day.* Yet, however incomplete, it may 
suffice to show that among the members of this association the love of science 
and of labor has not diminished, and that it continues to procure, for minds 
capable of appreciating them, those pure and elevated pleasures of which the 
study of the works of the Creator is an inexhaustible source. May He who has 
placed us in a country so rich in subjects of research and meditation continue 
to preserve you, that by your example and instruction you may encourage 
those who follow you in life to strive likewise to lift some of those veils which 
still hide from us so many mysteries, and worthily to fill the vacancies which 
the will of God accomplishes in our midst. 
We have this year had but a single loss to lament—that, namely, of our 
senior member, Prof. Maunoir. We have not of late seen. him at our sessions, 
but the former records of the Society attest the interest with which he regarded 
its proceedings. In the brief sketch which I can here give, and while regret- 
ting that the office of commemorating his eminent merits has not fallen to some 
one better qualified, I shall be held excused if I touch rather on those works 
of our deceased colleague which bear a direct relation to the physical and natu- 
ral sciences than those pertaining to the art which he practiced with so much 
distinction. 
Jean Pierre Maunoir was born October 10, 1768, at Geneva, and was led at 
an early age, in the pursuit of his surgical studies, to visit first Paris and 
afterwards England. ‘The first publication by which he became known was 
published in 1812, and was entitled Physiological and practical memoirs on 
aneurism and the ligature of the arteries. His reputation was still further 
extended by his writings on the organization of the iris and the operation for 
artificial pupil, in which he demonstrated that the iris is composed of a double 
muscular system, of fibres disposed in radii, proceeding from the larger border 
of the iris towards the centre of the pupil and of circular fibres surrounding 
the pupil like a ring. He applied his views on the function of these different 
fibres to the operation for artificial pupil, and succeeded in a great number of 
cases in obtaining pupils whose form was exactly that which was indicated in 
advance by the arrangement of the muscular fibres divided. The reputation 
which these publications procured him was advanced to a still higher point by 
the address, the skill, and the presence of mind which he brought to such deli- 
cate operations as those which regard the sight. I pass over various disserta- 
tions by our colleague on subjects of surgery, on the medullary fungus and 
hematodes, (1820.) on hydrocele of the neck, on amputations and immediate 
reunion, on cataract and the means of remedying it, in order to notice an essay 
published in 1842 on the adjustment of the eye to different distances. He 
attributed this faculty to a change of form in the ocular globe produced by 
the contraction of the external muscles. The recent progress effected in the 
anatomy and physiology of the eye no longer authorizes us to admit this con- 
clusion, but teaches us to seek the explanation of the phenomenon in the inte- 
rior of that organ and in the movements of the crystalline. The diversified 
labors of Maunoir procured him many honorary distinctions. Without speaking 
of the place he occupied in the scientific societies of Geneva, I shall merely 
recall that he was a correspondent of the French Institute and an associate of 
a great number of learned societies of the highest distinction in Europe and 
even in America. He loved science in all its branches, and those of us who 
remember his attendance at our meetings will not have forgotten the intelligent 
*(June 13, 1861.) It should be added, to justify more fully the expressions above em- 
ployed, that many publications by members of the Society, and some of them among the 
most important, are not mentioned at the meetings. 
