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DR. SHARPEY, 



I am happy to have the honour of handing to you the Copley 

 Medal, in charge for Professor Miiller. 



The Copley Medal has been awarded to our distinguished Foreign 

 Member, Professor Johannes Miiller of Berlin, for his important 

 contributions to different branches of Physiology and Comparative 

 Anatomy, and particularly for his researches on the Embryology and 

 Structure of the Echinodermata, contained in a series of memoirs 

 published in the Transactions of the Royal Academy of Berlin. 



No one has borne a more conspicuous part in the advancement of 

 physiological science for the last quarter of a century than Johannes 

 Miiller, and there is none whose services in that department of na- 

 tural knowledge are more deserving of honourable recognition. 



So great, indeed, has been his scientific activity, that in the brief 

 reference to his writings suited to this occasion, I am constrained to 

 pass by much that is excellent and confine myself to those which 

 most strikingly evince his merit in the several departments in which 

 he has laboured. 



At an early period of his career he published his well-known 

 treatise on the Secreting Glands. In this work he traces the in- 

 timate structure of these organs in the varied conditions which it 

 presents, from the lowest animals to man ; and in particular he 

 establishes on a more broad and satisfactory basis the true doctrine 

 of the relation of the blood-vessels and ducts, as first correctly con- 

 ceived by Malpighi ; indeed, since the time of the great anatomist 

 of Bologna, no general work had appeared on the subject to be com- 

 pared with that of Professor Miiller. 



Among his numerous contributions to Comparative Anatomy, I 

 may specially single out his series of memoirs on the Myxinoid 

 Fishes. Of the scope and importance of this great work but a faint 

 idea is conveyed by the title ; for while the anatomy of a particular 

 family of fishes may be said to form its text, there is an ample com- 

 mentary, rich in new and original matter, in which the structure is 

 compared in other tribes, and the facts sagaciously applied to the 

 elucidation of great questions in animal morphology. 



In Physiology, Professor Miiller has proved himself equally a 

 master. His " Handbook" has long held a high place in physiolo- 

 gical literature, and under this modest designation not only presents 



