216 ANNUAL MEETING. 



but nevertheless I think we shall recognize the fact that this is a 

 very interesting Address and no doubt a great deal may be learnt 

 hereafter from it. I observe with great satisfaction that the 

 author of it indicates that it is only a sketch. Let us hope that 

 liereafter he will fill it up and make a complete picture. In the 

 meantime I have much pleasure in moving "that the hearty 

 thanks of this meeting be given to Professor Duns for his (the 

 Annual) Address and to the reader for the part he has been good 

 enough to take, and also to the authors of the papers read during 

 the past session.'* (Applause.) 



Sir Joseph Father, M.D., K.C.S.I., F.R.S. — Mr. President, my 

 lord, ladies and gentlemen ; I have very great pleasure in second- 

 ing the resolution that has just been so eloquently proposed by the 

 noble lord who has just sat down. I wish he had not criticised 

 the Address so fully — in short that he would have left me some- 

 thing to say. It would not be quite fair I think, though, to attempt 

 to criticise an essay of this kind summarily, having only had the 

 opportunity of hearing it, and you know how transient the 

 impression is that is made by simply hearing a paper read. Such 

 an Address as this requires to be studied before one attempts to 

 criticise, and I look on it as one of great interest. I think it quite 

 comes within the scope of the class of subjects contemplated by 

 this Institute. It is philosophic, archeeological and anthropological, 

 and is an excellent Address. In regard to the myths, iraditions and 

 superstitions that have been related to us, I may say that I have spent 

 the best part of my life in a country with hundreds of millions of 

 people of ancient civilisation whose ancestors were mathematicians 

 and philosophers when our own people were painted savages — 

 people who believe to this moment that such a stone as one of those 

 you have heard described is capable, if applied to the bite of the 

 most deadly snake, of preserving life. In this, as in other myths, 

 you may have some substratum of the elements of truth — not from 

 the point of view which they take, but from the point of view which 

 those who have read papers before the Victoria Institute and have 

 followed the line of thought and mental development, endorsed by 

 this Institute wdll understand. This stono is simply an absorbent 

 — a piece of charred bone, and it has the property of absorbicg 

 by capillary attraction, never sufficiently in bad cases, but in more 

 slight ones, it has given rise to the idea that it is capable of saving 

 life in all cases. That idea is rapidly passirg avtay and no doubt, 



