September 12, 1895] 



NATURE 



46; 



Vast as have been the advances of physiological botany since 

 thai time, much of its fundamental principles remain to be 

 worked out, and I trust that the establishment, for the first time, 

 of a permanent Section for botany at the present meeting will 

 lead the Association to lake a more prominent part than it has 

 hitherto done in the further development of this branch of 

 biological science. 



Animal Physiology. 



In 1S31 Cuvier, who during the previous generation had, by 

 the collation of facts followed by careful inductive reasoning, 

 established the plan on which each animal is constructed, was 

 approaching the termination of his long and useful life. He 

 died in 1832 ; but in 1831 Richard Owen was just commencing 

 his anatomical investigations and his brilliant contributions to 

 paUeontology. 



The impulse which their labours gave to biological science 

 was reflected in numerous reports and communications, by 

 Owen and others, throughout the early decades of the British 

 Association, until Darwin propounded a theory of evolution 

 which commanded the general assent of the scientific world. 

 For this theory was not absolutely new. But just as Cuvier had 

 shown that each bone in the fabric of an animal affords a clue 

 to the shape and structure of the animal, so Darwin brought 

 harmony into scattered facts, and led us to perceive that the 

 moulding hand of the Creator maj' have evolved Xhtt complicated 

 structures of the organic world from one or more primeval cells. 



Richard Owen did not accept Darwin's theory of evolution, 

 and a large section of the public contested it. I well remember 

 the storm it produced — a storm of praise by my geological 

 colleagues, who accepted the result of investigated facts ; a 

 storm of indignation such as that which would have burned 

 Galileo at the stake from those «lio were not yet prepared to 

 question the old authorities ; but they diminish daily. 



We are, however, as yet only on the threshold of the doctrine 

 of evolution. Does not each investigation, even into the 

 embryonic stage of the simpler forms of life, suggest fresh 

 problems ? 



Anthropology. 



The impulse given by Darwin has been fruitful in leading 

 others to consider whether the same principle of evolution may 

 not have governed the moral as well as the material progress 

 of the human race. Mr. Kidd tells us that nature as inter- 

 preted by the struggle for life contains no sanction for the moral 

 progress of the individual, and points out that if each of us 

 were allowed by the conditions of life to follow his own 

 inclination the average of each generation would distinctly 

 deteriorate from that of the preceding one ; but because the law 

 of life is ceaseless and inevitable struggle and competition, 

 ceaseless and inevitable selection and rejection, the result is 

 necessarily ceaseless and inevitable progress. Evolution, as Sir 

 William Flower said, is the message which biology has sent to 

 help us on with some of the problems of human life, and Francis 

 Gallon urges that man, the foremost outcome of the awful 

 mystery of evolution, should realise that he has the power of 

 shaping the course of future humanity by using his intelligence 

 to discover and expedite the changes which are necessary to 

 atlapt circumstances to man, and man to circumstances. 



In considering the evolution of the human race, the science 

 of preventive medicine may afford us some indication of the 

 direction in which to seek for social improvement. One of the 

 early steps towards establishing that science upon a secure basis 

 was taken in 1S35 by the British Association, who urged upon 

 the Government the necessity of establishing registers of 

 morlality showing the causes of death " on one uniform plan in 

 all parts of the King's dominions, as the only means by which 

 general laws touching the influence of causes of disease and 

 death could be satisfactorily deduced." The general registration 

 of births and deaths was commenced in 1838. But a mere 

 record of death and its proximate cause is insuflicient. Pre- 

 ventive medicine requires a knowledge of the details of the 

 previous conditions of life and of occupaticm. Moreover, death 

 IS not our only or most dangerous enemy, and the main object 

 of preventive medicine is to ward off disease. Disease of body 

 lowers our useful energy. Disease of body or of mind may 

 stamp its curse on succeeding generations. 



The anthropometric laboratory afibrds to the student of 

 anthrojxilogy a means of analysing the causes of weakness, not 

 only in bodily, but also in mental life. 



Mental actions are indicated by movements and their results. 

 Such signs are capable of record, and modern physiology has 



NO. 1350, VOL. 52] 



shown that bodily movements correspond to action in nerve- 

 centres, as surely as the motions of the telegraph-indicator 

 express the movements of the operator's hands in the distant 

 office. 



Thus there is a relation between a defective status in brain 

 power and defects in the proportioning of the body. Defects in 

 physiognomical details, too finely graded to be measured with 

 instruments, may be appreciated \\ ith accuracy by the senses of 

 the observer ; and the records show that these defects are, in a 

 large degree, associated with a brain status lower than the 

 average in mental power. 



A report presented by one of your committees gives the results 

 of observations made on 100,000 school-children examined in- 

 dividually in order to determine their mental and physical con- 

 dition for the purpose of classification. This shows that about 

 16 per 1000 of the elementarj' school population appear to be so 

 far defective in their bodily or brain condition as to need special 

 training to enable them to undertake the duties of life, and to 

 kee]> them from pauperism or crime. 



Many of our feeble-minded children, and much disease and 

 vice, are t'ne outcome of inherited proclivities. Francis Galton 

 has shown us that types of criminals which have been bred true 

 to their kind are one of the saddest disfigurements of modern 

 civilisation ; and he says that few deserve better of their country 

 than those who determine to lead celibate lives through a 

 reasonable conviction that their issue would probably be less 

 fitted than the generality to play their part as citizens. 



These considerations point to the importance of preventing 

 those suffering from transmissible disease, or the criminal, or the 

 lunatic, from adding fresh sufferers to the teeming misery in our 

 large towns. And in any case, knowing as we do the influence 

 of environment on the development of individuals, they point to 

 the necessity of removing those who are born w ith feeble minds, 

 or under conditions of moral danger, from surrounding 

 deteriorating influences. 



These are problems which materially aftect the progiess of the 

 human race, and we may feel sure that, as we gradually approach 

 their solution, we shall more certainly realise that the theory of 

 evolution, which the genius of Darwin impressed on this centur)-, 

 is but the first step on a biological ladder which may possibly 

 eventually lead us to understand how in the drama of creation 

 man has been evolved as the highest work of the Creator. 



Bacteriology. 



The sciences of medicine and surgery were largely represented 

 in the earlier meetings of the Association, before the creation of 

 the British Medical Association afforded a field for their more 

 intimate discussion. The close connection between the different 

 branches of science is causing a revival in our proceedings of 

 discussions on some of the highest medical problems, especially 

 those relating to the spread of infectious and epidemic disease. 



It is interesting to contrast the opinion prevalent at the 

 foundation of the Association with the present position of the 

 question. 



A reix)rt to the Association in 1834, by Prof. Henry, on 

 contagion, says : — 



" The notion that contagious emanations are at all connected 

 with the diffusion of animalcuUe through the atmosphere is at 

 variance with all that is known of the diffusion of volatile 

 contagion." 



Whilst it had long been known that filthy conditions in air, 

 earth and water fostered fever, cholera, and many other forms of 

 disease, and that the disease ceased to spread on the removal 

 of these conditions, yet the re;ison for their propagation or 

 diminution remained under a veil. 



Leeuwenhoek in 1680 described the yeast-cells, but Schwann 

 in 1837 first showed clearly that fermentation was due to the 

 activity of the yeast-cells ; and, although vague ideas of fer- 

 mentation had been current during the past century, he laid the 

 foundation of our exact knowledge of the nature of the action of 

 ferments, both organise<l and unorganised. It was not until 

 i860, after the prize of the Academy of Sciences had been 

 awarded to Pasteur for his essay against the theory of spon- 

 taneous generation, that his investigations into the action of 

 ferments' enabled him to show that the effects of the yeast-cell 



'In spc.-»king of ferments one must bear in mind that tlierc ara two classes 

 of ferments; one. living beings, siicfi as yeast — "organised " ferments, as 

 tfiey are sometimes called — ifie otlier the products of living beings themselves, 

 such as pepsin, itc. — "unorganised" ferments. Pasteur worked with the 

 former, vcrj- little with the latter 



