Ix. president's address. 



that no discussion is to take place on the subjects of Religion 

 or Politics, whatever views may be held by individual 

 Members, and if any statements were made tending to 

 provoke such discussion, I should certainly feel it my duty 

 to call upon the Member making them to withdraw them. I 

 can only regret and offer my protest, in which I am sure that 

 I should be supported by the great majority of our Club, 

 against the tone of the remarks on portions of the Bible 

 made in this Address, which would certainly be offensive to 

 many of his hearers, and might well have been omitted 

 altogether, especially as he states that he places no reliance 

 upon the records to which they refer. 



Beginning with the lowest forms of life with which we are 

 at present acquainted, there are about 18 diseases known, 

 including yellow fever and rabies, which we have every reason 

 to connect with minute parasites, but of so very small a size 

 that they will pass through a porcelain filter and cannot be 

 detected by microscopes. A great deal of information 

 has now been obtained about these and many other diseases, 

 both of man and animals, where the parasite is visible in the 

 microscope. An interesting Address on this subject, as 

 regards animals, Mas given by the President of the South 

 African Association for the Advancement of Science, that 

 part of the world being particularly fertile in such plagues. 

 The Infusorian Paramoecium aurelia, has now been 

 parthenogenetically cultivated for more than five years, 

 giving more than 3,000 generations from a single individual 

 which was originally isolated. In contrast to this enormously 

 rapid increase there are individual sea anemones now living, 

 which have been in captivity for more than 50 years. Much 

 has lately been discovered about the formation of pearls, 

 which have either some external particle or parasite for a 

 nucleus, or are due to internal causes within the oyster itself. 

 A new and very fine addition to our sea fauna is a large 

 spider-crab {Homola cuvieri), a specimen of which was taken 

 off the Cornish coast and presented to the Plymouth Marine 

 Biological Laboratory. Its legs when stretched out cover a 



