Address of the President of the British Association. 247 



unable to rally and recover from it ; but that when the influence is al- 

 lowed to extend no further than to the suspension of sensation, the re- 

 covery is as a general rule complete. It is this remarkable property 

 of ether which has led to its recent application with such success as 

 may well lead us to thank God, who, in his providemce, has directed 

 the eminent physicians and surgeons amongst our brethren in the United 

 States to make this discovery; — a discovery which will long place the 

 name of Dr. Charles T. Jackson, its author, among the benefactors of 

 our common nature. 



"At the same time, much careful observation on the modus operandi 

 of this most singular agent, seems still requisite before a general, sys- 

 tematic, safe, and successful application of it can be established for the 

 relief of suffering humanity. So great, however, is the number of 

 well-recorded instances of its having saved the patient from the pain of 

 a surgical operation without any ill effect in reference to his subsequent 

 recovery, as to make the subject of the influence of the vapor of ether 

 upon the nervous system, and the modification of that influence on dif- 

 ferent temperaments, one eminently deserving the attention of the 

 physiological section of the British Association. 



"With regard to the functions of the primary division and parts of 

 the brain itself, there has been of late a happy tendency to substitute 

 observations on the modifications of those parts in the series of the lower 

 animals in the place of experimental mutilations on a single species, in 

 reference to the advancement of cerebral physiology. Experiment is, 

 °o doubt, in some instances, indispensable : but we ought ever to rejoice 

 w hen the same end is attained by comparative anatomy rather than by 

 experimental vivisections; and every true philosopher will concur with 

 ^y most eminent friend, Professor Owen, in his doubt, (I quote his own 

 words) < whether nature ever answers so truly when put to the torture, 

 88 she does when speaking voluntarily through her own experiments, if 

 we may so call the ablation and addition of parts which comparative 

 ^atomy offers to our contemplation.'— [Owen's Hunterian Lecture, 



v ertebrata, p. 187.] 



. " * was always struck with that passage in the ; Life of Sir W. Jones 

 m 'which that great man, who united so many claims to the admiration 

 of mankind, declined to accept the offer of a friend to collect, and in 

 collecting to put to death, a number of insects in the eastern islands, 

 t0 be transmitted to Calcutta. He did not, of course, deny the value 

 * nd importance, and, in one sense, the necessity, of forming such col- 

 lectl °ns: but he limited the right of posessing them to those who could 

 use ^em ; and he would not have one of those, the wonders of God s 

 a ^mal world, put to death for the mere gratification of his own unapt- 

 en Jific curiosity. He quotes the lines of Ferdusi, for which Saadi in- 

 vokes a blessing on his spirit, and the last of which contains all my 

 °wq morality in respect to the lower animals, — 



O spare yon emmet, rich in hoarded grain, 

 He lives with pleasure, and he dies with pam. 



1 am aware that the doctrine assumed in the first line of the couplet in 



Jference to the particular insect, is denied by some naturalists ; and 



ha J the f ac t assumed in the last line, in reference to the lower animals, 



13 denied by others. Whatever be the truth as to the first point, 1 have 



