45 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
Inaugural Address, delivered at a Meeting of the Medico- 
Botanical Society of London, held February \6th, 1831; 
Paice Henry Eart Strannore, President, in the chair. 
By Giserr T. Burnert, Professor of Botany to the 
Society, and Lecturer in the School of Physic, St. George's 
Hospital, &c. &c. &e. 
MY LORD PRESIDENT, AND GENTLEMEN: 
As circumstances vary the relations in which men stand, the 
duties are varied they are destined to perform. Each step 
advanced, each height attained, as it expands their influ- 
ence, in an equal degree extends their care. Posts of honour 
are not posts of ease, but are regarded in their truest light 
when they are viewed as stations of responsibility; and before 
attempting to fulfil the duties of such stations, all, who sin- 
cerely desire to discharge them with credit and profit to 
themselves and others, should endeavour clearly to under- 
stand their nature, and to become fully impressed with their 
importance. Since, therefore, being called to this honourable 
chair, | have laboured (not wholly, it is hoped, with fruitless 
effort,) to inform myself as to what must be required of the 
Professor of Botany to the Medico-Botanical Society; an 
office of no mean rank, in a Society of no mean importance: 
a Society, the bare mention of whose objects must immedi- 
ately challenge our attention and regard, directed, as its 
exertions are, to the philosophic investigation of the distinc- 
tive characters and medicinal properties of plants; a know- 
ledge by which, when fully gained, the power of physic will 
be much increased, and pain disarmed of half its terrors, by 
which ( Deo volente /) the life of man may be much prolonged, 
and human misery may much be lessened. 
As the avowed objects for which this Society was insti- 
tuted, and the laws by which the Council govern, alike pre- 
clude all dissertations on purely botanical researches, topics 
upon which a botanic mind luxuriates, points upon which it 
loves to expatiate; of course, all comments on the laws of life 
affecting the development of the vegetable structure; all 
remarks on the wonderful metamorphoses, both regular and 
irregular, transitional and vicarious, which plants continually 
pass through; all disquisitions on the vital functions of these 
simplest organic beings; the assimilation of their food; the 
production of their peculiar principles; the reproduction of 
their species; their irritability; their seeming instincts; with 
