December 2, 1897 



NA TURE 



10: 



Senior Optime in 1833. He could not, however, proceed to 

 his degree until twenty-three years later, on account of the 

 religious tests which were only abolished in 1856 by the Cam- 

 bridge University Reform Act. Of this, as member for North 

 Lancashire, he was the chief promoter : for, already in 1854, he 

 moved and carried, after several previous attempts, a clause by 

 233 against 78, in favour of the abolition of religious tests for 

 the Bachelors degree in Arts, Laws, Medicine, and Music. 

 There can be no doubt that this fundamental reform led the 

 way to the introduction of experimental science into our 

 universities. 



He was one of the original trustees of Owens College, Man- 

 chester, and took a keen interest in the establishment and 

 development of the scientific chairs in that institution. He was 

 elected into the Royal Society in 1839, and was, at the lime of 

 his death, the Fellow of longest standing. 



On February 19 last, Karl Weierstrass, one of our Foreign 

 Members, died in his eighty-second year. He was elected a 

 Foreign Member in 1881, and in 1895 the Copley Medal was 

 awarded to him in recognition of the contributions he had made 

 to pure mathematics. The grounds on which the award was 

 made were set out in the President's Address in that year ; and 

 so it is not necessary now to refer in detail to his researches. 

 The results which he obtained and the rigorous precision of 

 method which he adopted have made his influence remarkable ; 

 and it can fairly be claimed for him that he is not the least 

 eminent on the roll of the great mathematicians of the century. 



Alf|ed Des Cloizeaux was a veteran mineralogist of great 

 eminepce. His first paper was published fifty-four years ago, 

 and \*as the beginning of a long series treating of the forms 

 and optical characters of crystals. After being Professor of 

 Mineralogy for eighteen years at the Ecole Normale Superieure, 

 he was appointed to the charge of the minerals at the Musee 

 d'Histoire Naturelle, in which ofiice he remained until he 

 reached the limit of age prescribed by the rules of the 

 French Civil Service. His fame rests upon the thoroughness 

 and accuracy of his systematic investigation of the crystals of 

 minerals, more especially as regards their optical properties. 

 The results are incorporated in his "Manuel de Mineralogie," 

 a standard book of reference. Prof. Des Cloizeaux died in the 

 eightieth year of his age. 



In Julius von Sachs botanical science has lost one of the most 

 conspicuous figures of the latter half of the century. His wide- 

 spread influence was due in the main to two memorable books. 



In his " Experimental-Physiologic" (1866) he at once put 

 the subject on a new footing. He returned to the methods 

 long ago pursued by Hales and Knight in this country, and, 

 while giving a critical estimate of the results achieved by his 

 predecessors, everywhere turned the light of experimental 

 investigation on the problems presented by the living plant. 

 The success which he met with was due to a broad grasp of 

 general principles and a singular directness of aim at the object 

 in view, associated with great experimental skill. In his 

 mechanical ingenuity and aptiiude for making simple yet 

 effective appliances he somewhat resembled Faraday. 



His " Lehrbuch " (1868) produced a profound impression on 

 the teaching of botany both in Europe and America. It did 

 for botany what Gegenbaur achieved for zoology, in presenting 

 the morphological facts of the vegetable kingdom for the first 

 time as a whole. As with the " Experimental- Physiologic," it 

 was no mere compilation, but was at every point subjected to 

 the test of original investigation. 



Sachs, moreover, presented the somewhat unusual com- 

 bination in science of great gifts of original investigation accom- 

 panied by no less great gifts of exposition. The insight of his 

 attack on a problem was equalled by the masterly lucidity with 

 wh;ch he expounded his results. 



Emile du Bois-Reymond, who died in December of last year 

 at the age of seventy- eight, was a Foreign Member of the 

 Royal Society since 1877. Although born in Berlin, he was of 

 French-Swiss extraction, his father being a native of Neuf- 

 chatel, and his mother belonging to a French Huguenot family. 

 He studied in the Universities of Berlin and Bonn, and took 

 his Doctor's degree in Medicine in Berlin. In 1840, at the 

 age of twenty-two he became the assistant of Johannes Miiller, 

 whose successor he was appointed, in the chair of Physiology in 

 Berlin, in 1858. He has himself told us that it was Johannes 

 Miiller who first turned his attention to the study of animal 

 electricity, to which the labours of his life were chiefly devoted. 

 His publications on the subject were very numerous, while his 



observations were characterised by mathematical accuracy which 

 stamped them as trustworthy. And it is not too much to say 

 that his discoveries constitute the main fabric of our knowledge 

 of animal electricity. 



Although his energies were chiefly devoted to one branch of 

 physiology, he was not unmindful of other departments of the 

 science. Ever since 1859 his name has been associated with 

 the editorship of the " Archiv fur Anatomic und Physiologic," 

 which he carried on in conjunction with Reichert, after the 

 death of Johannes Miiller. He was a man of wide sympathies 

 and high culture. His semi-popular discourses, scientific, 

 literary, and historical, are models of well-selected language, 

 clear exposition, and deep erudition. His address "On the 

 Limits of Natural Knowledge " has passed through numerous 

 editions, and has been translated into many languages. Du 

 Bois-Reymond ranks with men like Bernard, Briicke, Helm- 

 holtz, and Ludv\ig, as one of those by whom the science of 

 modern physiology has been built up. 



As regards the work of the Society during the past year I 

 have little to add to the Council's Report. 



On July 15 I had the honour of taking part in a deputatio.T 

 to the Queen at Windsor to present the address of congratula- 

 tion which had received the sanction of the Society. On this 

 memorable occasion I was accompanied by the other officers, 

 including all the Vice-Presidents, and also by three former 

 Presidents, whom we all revere. Sir Joseph Hooker, Sir George 

 Stokes, and Lord Kelvin. Her Majesty received us in person, 

 and made the following very gracious reply : — 



" I thank you for your loyal and dutiful Address. I am 

 much gratified by the attachment which your ancient and learned 

 Society expresses to my Throne and Person. 



" I am fully sensible how far the labours and ingenuity of men 

 of science, whom you worthily represent, have advanced the 

 industrial and social prosperity of my people, and have tended 

 alike to their good and refinement, and I confidently expect the 

 same excellent fruit in years to come from the indefatigable and 

 reverent investigation of nature for the promotion of which the 

 Royal Society was founded." 



In the early part of the year a deputation from the Royal 

 Society, the British Association, and several others of the most 

 important scientific and technical societies, wailed upon the 

 Prime Minister to urge upon him the importance of establishing in 

 this country a National Physical Laboratory in which the testing 

 and verification of instruments and the construction and improve- 

 ment of standards of various kinds should be undei taken in a 

 regular and systematic way. There was nothing new in principle 

 in this proposal. Work of the kind referred to has for many 

 years been carried out at Kew under the auspices of the Royal 

 Society. It has been as successful as the limited means 

 at the disposal of the Kew Observatory Committee would 

 allow ; and all that is needed is sufficient State aid to enable 

 work of the same kind to be done on a larger and more useful 

 scale. 



It is satisfactory to be able to state that the efforts of the 

 deputation were not in vain. A committee, of which Lord 

 Rayleigh is chairman, has been appointed by the Treasury to 

 investigate and report upon the desirability of the scheme. 

 Evidence is being taken, and we may fairly hope that the 

 Government will finally consent to promote an undertaking 

 which could not fail to advance the interests both of pure 

 science and of scientific industry. 



In January last I was requested by the Council to approach 

 the India Office in order to call their attention to Yersin's 

 treatment of bubonic plague, which was causing such grave 

 anxiety in the Bombay Presidency. I gladly undertook this 

 service, as I had been greatly impressed with an account which 

 that distinguished man, himself an independent discoverer of 

 the plague bacillus, had given of a trial he had made of his 

 remedy in China. The cases were, indeed, not very numerous, 

 but the success recorded was most striking, and was in every 

 detail so exactly proportioned to the shortness of the duration of 

 the disease at the time when the treatment was begun that it 

 was difficult to conceive it to be a matter of accidental concomit- 

 ance. A similar correspondence of results with theory, taken 

 along with complete trustworthiness of the source of information, 

 had made me early feel and express confidence in the analogous 

 serum treatment of diphtheria, which has since proved of such 

 signal benefit to the community. 



I was received at the India Office with the utmost cordiality, 

 and I am not violating confidence when I say that my repre- 



NO. 1466.. VOL. 57] 



