August 4, 1904] 



NATURE 



333 



members of the university and by tlie citizens, a quite un- 

 usually large proportion of the members who were visiting 

 Oxford steadily pursued the actual business of the meeting 

 in the various sections. 



Not only was the occasion distinguished by the presence 

 and participation in the sectional meetings of a considerable 

 number of eminent foreign visitors, and of an exceptionally 

 numerous gathering of the recognised leaders of thought 

 and investigation in medical science in our own country and 

 the colonies, but it was also rendered memorable by the 

 great iinportance and originality of the new work brought 

 forward in many of the sections.' Indeed, both in the science 

 and the art of medicine in its widest sense, notable results 

 of signal interest were recorded ; and more than one 

 sectional meeting witnessed the initiation of far-reaching 

 advances, the significance of which it would be difficult to 

 overestimate. 



An academic interest was lent to the occasion by the 

 presence of the Vice-Chancellor at a number of the 

 meetings, and by the holding of a special convocation of 

 the university, at which the doctorate in science, honoris, 

 tausa, was conferred upon the following distinguished 

 members of the association : — 



Dr. T. Clifford AUbutt, F.R.S., regius professor of physic 

 in the University of Cambridge ; Mr. Andrew Clark, chair- 

 man of council, British Medical Association ; Dr. T. D. 

 GritViths, late president of the British Medical Association ; 

 Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson, F.R.S., late president of the 

 Roval College of Surgeons of England ; Sir William 

 Ma'cewen, F.R.S., regius professor of surgery in the 

 University of Glasgow ; Sir Patrick Manson, F.R.S., of the 

 London School of Tropical Medicine: Sir John W. Moore, 

 formerly president of the Royal College of Physicians of 

 Ireland; Prof. Osier, of Johns Hopkins University. 



At the annual general meeting of the association the 

 Vice-Chancellor of the university. Dr. Monro ; the Dean of 

 Christ Church, the Very Rev. T. B. Strong ; the master 

 of University College, Dr. Bright ; and Mr. A. G. Vernon 

 Harcourt, F.R.S., of Christ Church, were elected honorary 

 members of the association. 



The president. Dr. William Collier, took as the subject 

 of his address " The Growth and Development of the Oxford 

 Medical School." Starting from the period when the study 

 of science and medicine in Oxford was at such an ebb that 

 the school had been justly spoken of as "a lost medical 

 school," he showed how large a part the association had 

 played in its re-establishment. 



By the action which it took in 1879 in memorialising the 

 House of Commons, the university commissioners, and the 

 hebdomadal council, it had afforded most material assist- 

 ance to the late Sir Henry .Acland and his colleagues at a 

 critical period in the struggle which they were carrying on 

 in Oxford. The work of Acland had been nobly carried on 

 by his successors. Under their guidance there had gradually 

 again grown up in Oxford a school of natural science and 

 medicine which was already taking a prominent place among 

 the leading schools of science in the country. 



After emphasising the advantages which had thus accrued 

 both to the profession of medicine and to the university. 

 Dr. Collier drew a vivid picture of the brilliant past of 

 Oxford medicine at the time when, in the sixteenth and 

 seventeeth centuries, the university formed the centre of 

 English scientific thought, and numbered on her roll such 

 names as those of Willis, Boyle, Wilkins, Lower, Wren, 

 and Harvey. To-day, he said, Oxford was again alive to 

 the importance of science and the scientific method. 

 Nothing save the bitter need for necessary endowments 

 hampered her and held her back from bearing once again 

 a noble part in the advancement of natural knowledge, and 

 rivalling the scientific glories of her past. 



Continuing, Dr. Collier said we all of us realised that 

 the provision which has to be made for a modern scientific 

 education is of necessity a costly undertaking. He wished 

 more particularly to emphasise this point, because the 

 amount of work done in the way of instruction in the 

 scientific departments of the university for a totally in- 

 adequate remuneration was well recognised and much de- 

 plored. He would quote the words spoken recently by His 

 Majesty the King at Cambridge : — " the older universities 

 must receive new endowments, if education within my 

 realms is to be kept at its proper standard of efficiency." 



NO. 18 14, VOL. 70] 



One could but hope that these new endowments of which 

 the university stood in such urgent need would speedily be 

 forthcoming; and one found a difficulty in understanding 

 how it was that a university such as that of Oxford, with 

 its noble traditions and its long roll of illustrious dead — 

 a university which for many centuries had been, with the 

 sister University of Cambridge, the acknowledged training 

 school of the leaders of thought and action in the country 

 — failed to appeal to those fortunate individuals who were 

 in a position to do their country and education a service, 

 and to enrol their names on that imperishable record of 

 benefactors whose memories we honour and extol. 



The addresses in medicine and surgery delivered by Sir 

 William Selby Church and Sir William Macewen were of 

 great importance, and a valuable popular lecture on disease 

 germs, open to the public, was delivered by Dr. Bagot 

 Ferguson. 



Sir William Church dealt with the relation of medicine 

 to the State, and with the pressing questions in public 

 health. The national health, he urged, was a matter " of 

 supreme importance far transcending the ordinary political 

 issues of the day." But at the present time the administra- 

 tion, even of the Acts which had been secured, was in- 

 effective. 



He was afraid, from the nature of the report of the 

 Treasury Committee appointed to consider the position and 

 duties of the Board of Trade and the Local Government 

 Board, that there was not much prospect of the Public Health 

 Department of the Board receiving any increase either of 

 power or payment. The health of the nation, on which 

 its success and prosperity depend, was thrust into the back- 

 ground with the remark that the president of the board 

 " has the advantage not only of the professional opinion 

 of the Medical Officer of the Board, but also of the general 

 administrative experience of the Permanent Secretary." 



He thought that in pressing the necessity for the reform 

 of the Local Government Board upon the attention of the 

 president and the Government, three points should be 

 especially emphasised : — first, that the central authority 

 should act as an advisory as well as a supervising authority ; 

 secondly, that both in the Local Government Board and 

 in the local authorities the medical element should have 

 greater weight ; and, thirdly, that the medical oflicers of 

 these authorities should exercise further supervision and 

 control over the purity and wholesomeness of articles sold 

 for food. 



In the section of anatomy Prof. D. J. Cunningham intro- 

 duced a discussion upon giants and dwarfs. He regarded 

 gigantism and acromegaly as morbid processes having 

 many points of similarity, and stated that of the cases of 

 gigantism on record thirteen were certainly acromegalic. 

 Dr. Gibson and Prof. Symington also supported the view 

 that gigantism is a pathological condition, and is associated 

 with disease or abnormality of the pituitary body. Dr. 

 Hastings Gilford held that giants and dwarfs may be either 

 natural or pathological. He described three forms of 

 dwarfism, which he illustrated by a number of living cases. 

 He also exhibited a beautiful series of photographs bearing 

 on atcleiosis and progeria. 



In connection with this section Dr. Keith exhibited a 

 series of hearts to demonstrate the arrangement of the 

 ■ auricular musculature forming the valves described by him 

 as closing the venous orifices during normal auricular con- 

 traction. The observations w'hich he has made have also 

 led to the elucidation of the mechanism by which the right 

 crus of the diaphragm, acting upon the heart, produces 

 what is termed by physiologists "the respiratory pump." 

 They also e.xplain the means by which a number of the 

 changes in the circulation taking place at birth are brought 

 about. 



Dr. Keith also had specimens proving the existence of a 

 sphincter muscle at the ileo-c;Bcal valve in man. 



Dr. Keibel, of Leipzig, showed an instructive series of 

 models of the development of the urogenital system of 

 Echidna, and Dr. Bryce detailed his observations into the 

 origin of embryonic leucocytes, derived from a study of the 

 histogenesis of the blood of larvae lepidosiren. 



The section of physiology held a discussion on the 

 thalamic region in conjunction with the anatomists. The 

 discussion was opened by Dr. Oustav Mann, who divided 

 the central nervous system into an anterior part limited 



