PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. 3 



in the title. The other former member is the late Mr. Vincent 

 Robinson, who belonged to the club for some years, and in 

 1899 entertained its members at Parnham, where he had 

 brought together a large and valuable collection of art objects, 

 in which he was a great connoisseur. A copy of the finely 

 illustrated catalogue of these was presented by him to the 

 Dorset County Museum Library. I now proceed to touch 

 upon some of the points in which science has advanced 

 during the past twelve months. 



ZOOLOGY. 



The chief recent discovery in connection with the researches 

 of the Royal Society Commission on sleeping sickness is that 

 the flies conveying the disease may remain infective for a much 

 longer period than was supposed, up to at least 75 days, and 

 not improbably for the rest of their lives. A conference has 

 been held at Simla to consider the best means of destroying 

 the mosquitoes, which carry the infection of malaria, but 

 it was realised that local conditions, which were extremely 

 favourable in Ismalia, had much to do with success in the 

 crusade against them, and in many places the operations 

 would be difficult and costly. Some of the small organisms 

 which play so important a part in disease are still unknown, 

 such as that of vaccine, which is believed to owe its energy 

 to a protozoon. It has been shown that by storing water 

 containing cholera bacilli, it becomes pure in less than three 

 weeks. This has been tried with artificially infected water 

 from the New River and elsewhere. It has been suggested 

 that the wheel-animalcules, or Rotifera, owe their remarkable 

 universal distribution over the earth's surface, many of the 

 same genera, and even species, being found from the Poles to 

 the Equator, to the fact that they can be dried up and carried 

 about by winds and come to life again ; but it has been shown 

 that this applies only to a very few species, the bulk dying 

 directly under such treatment their distribution must, 



