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established, may probably help to a further insight into the nature 

 and office of nervous ganglia, a question in physiology on which our 

 want of real knowledge has given scope to much profitless specu- 

 lation ; its discovery was deemed of sufficient importance by the 

 French Academy of Sciences to entitle its author to the award of 

 the Monthyon Prize in Physiology for the year 1856. 



Besides these independent researches, Dr. Waller, in association 

 with Professor Budge of Bonn, undertook an experimental inquiry 

 into the influence of the sympathetic nerve on the motions of the 

 iris, which resulted in showing the dependence of certain of these 

 motions on a particular part of the spinal cord. For these researches 

 the authors obtained the Monthyon Prize for 1852. Lastly, through 

 his independent investigations, Dr. Waller had an important share in 

 the discovery of the influence of the cervical part of the sympathetic 

 nerve on the contractility of the blood-vessels of the head ; and he 

 first demonstrated, by positive experiment, the influence of the cilio- 

 spinal region of the spinal cord over these vessels. 



For these various merits the Council have adjudged to Dr. Waller 

 a Royal Medal, but especially for having supplied a process of re- 

 search, which, already successful in the hands of himself and other 

 inquirers, promises to afford most effectual aid in the future study of 

 the Nervous System. 



DR. WALLER, 



In presenting this Medal to you, I have to express the hope of the 

 Council that it will operate as an encouragement to you to prosecute 

 researches which are considered by your brother physiologists to have 

 so high a value. 



The Rumford Medal has been awarded to Professor James Clerk 

 Maxwell, for his Researches on the Composition of Colours and other 

 Optical Papers. 



Professor Maxwell is the author of various remarkable papers on 

 subjects of pure mathematics and physics, which cannot here be 

 mentioned, besides his memoirs more immediately devoted to optics. 

 In one of his earliest papers, he has connected, by rigorous calcula- 



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