Sept. 8, 1 88 1 ] 



NATURE 



439 



from individual peculiarities or accidental admixture can be 

 obviated, and the jjrevailing characteristics of a race or group 

 truly ascertained. It is only in an institution commanding the 

 resources of the nation that such a collection can be formed, and 

 it may therefore be confidently hoped that the trustees of the 

 British MuNeum will appropriate some portion of the magnificent 

 w^'K b'rildiiiL^, which has been provided for the accommodation 

 of their natural history collections, to this hitherto neglected 

 branch of the subject. 



I have mentioned two of the needs of anthropology in this 

 country — more workers and better collections : tliere is still a 

 third — that of a society or institution in which anthropologists 

 can meet and discuss their respective views, with a journal in 

 which the results of their investigations can be laid before the 

 public, and a library in wliich they can find the books and 

 periodicals necessary for their study. All this ought to be pro- 

 vided by the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and 

 Ireland, which originated in the amalgamation of the old Ethno- 

 logical and Anthropological Societies. But, as I intimated 

 some time ago, the Institute does not at the present time flourish 

 as it should ; its meetings are not so well attended as they might 

 be ; the journal is restricted in its powers of illustration and 

 printing by want of funds ; the library is quite insufficient for 

 the needs of the student. 



This certainly does not arise from any want of good manage- 

 ment in the .Society itself. Its afairs have been presided over 

 and administered by some of the most eminent and able men the 

 country has produced. Huxley, Lubbock, Busk, Evans, Tylor, 

 and Pitt-Rivers have in succession given their energies to its 

 service, and yet the number of its members is falling away, its 

 usefulness is crippled, and its very 'existence seems precarious. 

 Some decline to join the Institute, others leave it upon the plea 

 that, being unable from distance or other causes to attend the 

 meetings, they cannot obtain the full return for their subscrip- 

 tions ; others on the ground that the journal does not contain the 

 exact information which they require. 



There surely is to be found a sufficient number of persons 

 who are influenced by different considerations, who feel that 

 anthropological science is worth cultivating, and that those 

 who are laboriously and patiently tracing out the complex 

 problems of man's diversity and man's early history are doin^ a 

 good work, and ought to be encouraged by having the means 

 affordel them of carrying on their investigations and of placing 

 the results of their researclies before the world — who feel, more- 

 over, that there ought to be some central bjdy, representing the 

 subject, which may, on occasion, influence opinio i or speak 

 authoritatively on matters often of great practical importance to 

 the nation. 



There must be many in this great and wealthy country who 

 feel that they are helping a good cause in joining such a society, 

 even if they are not individually receiving what they consider a 

 full equivalent for ther small subcription — many who feel satis- 

 faction in helping the cause of knowledge, in helping to remove 

 the opprobrium that the British Anthropological Society alone 

 of tho e of the world is lacking in vitality, and in helping 

 to prevent this country from falling behind all the nations in the 

 cultivation of a science in which, for the strongest reasons, it 

 might be expected to hold the foremost place. It is a far more 

 grateful task to maintain, extend, and if need be improve, an 

 existing organisation, than to construct a new one. I feel, there- 

 fore, no hesitation in urging upon all who take interest in the 

 promotion of the study of anthropology to rally round the 

 Institute, and to support the endeavours of the present excellent 

 president to increase its usefulness. 



Deparlment of Anatomy and Physiology 

 Opening Address by J. Burdon-Sandekson, M.D., LLD., 

 F.R.S., Professor of Phvsiclogy in University Col- 

 lege, London, Vice-President of the Section 

 On the Discoveries of the Past Half Century relating to Animal 

 Motion 

 The two great branches of Biology with which we concern 

 ourselves in this section, Animal Morphology and Physiology, 

 are most intimately related to each other. This arises from their 

 having one subject of study — the living animal organism. The 

 difference between them lies in this, that whereas the studies of 

 the anatomist lead him to fix his attention on the organism itself, 

 to us physiologists it, and the organs of which it is made up. 



serve only as vestigia, by means of which we investigate the 

 vital processes of which they are alike the causes and conse- 

 quences. 



To illustrate this I will first ask you to imagine for a moment 

 that you have before you one of those melancholy remainders 

 of what was once an animal— to wit, a rabbit— which one sees 

 exposed in the shops of poulterers. We have no hesitation in 

 recognising that remainder as being in a certain sense a rabbit ; 

 but it is a very miserable vestige of what was a few days ago 

 enjoying life in some wood or warren, or more likely on the 

 sand-hills near Ostend. We may call it a rabbit if we hke, but 

 it is only a remainder— not the thing itself. 



The anatomical preparation which I have in imagination placed 

 before yon, although it has lost its inside and its outside, its in- 

 tegument and its viscera, still retains the parts for which the rest 

 existed. The final cause of an animal, whether human or other, 

 is muscular action, because it is by means of it, muscles that it 

 maintains its external relations. It is by our muscles exclusively 

 that we act on each other. The articulate sounds by which I 

 am addressing you are but the results of complicated combina- 

 tions of muscular contractions — and so are the scarcely appre- 

 ciable changes in your countenances by which I am able to judge 

 how much, or how little, w'h.Tt I am saying interests you. 



Consequently the main problems of physiology relate to mus- 

 cular action, or, as I have called it, animal motion. They may 

 be divided into two — namely (i) in what does muscular action 

 consist — that is, what is the process of which it is the effect or 

 outcome ? and (2) how are the motions of our bodies co-ordin- 

 ated or regulated ? It is unnecessary to occupy time in showing 

 that, excluding those higher intellectual processes which, a.s 

 they leave no traceable marks behind them, are beyond the 

 reach of our methods of investigation, these two questions com- 

 prise all others concerning animal motion. I will therefore 

 proceed at once to the first of them — that of the process of 

 muscular contraction. 



The years which immediately followed the origin of the 

 British Association exceeded any earlier period of equal length 

 in the number and importance of the new facts in morphology 

 and in jihysiilogy which were brought to light ; for it was during 

 that period that Johannes Miiller, Schwann, Ilenle, and, in this 

 country, Sharpey, Bow^nan, and Marshall Hall, accomplished 

 their productive labours. But it was introduct^jry to a much 

 greater epoch. It would give you a true idea of the nature of 

 the great advance which took place about the middle of this 

 century if I were to define it as the epoch of the death of 

 "vitalism." Before that time, even the greate>t biologist — e.g. 

 J. Miiller — recognised that the knowledge they possessed both 

 of vital and physical phenomena was insufficient to refer both 

 to a common measure. The method, therefore, was to study 

 the processes of life in relation to each other only. Since that 

 time it has become fundamental in our science not to regard any 

 vital process as understood at all, unless it can be brought into 

 relation with physical standards, and the methods of physiology 

 h.ave been based exclu-ively on this principle. Let us inquire 

 for a moment what causes have conduced to the change. 



The most efficient cause was the progress which had been 

 made in physics and chemistry, and particularly those investiga- 

 tions which led to the establishment of the doctrine of the Con- 

 servation of Energ}'. In the application of this great principle 

 to physiology, the men to whom we are indebted are, first and 

 foremost, J. R. Mayer, of Avhom I shall say more immediately ; 

 and secondly, to the great physiologists still living and working 

 among us, w ho were the pu)iils of J. Miiller — viz. Helmholtz, 

 Ludwig, Du Bois-Reymond, and Briicke. 



As regards the subject « hich is first to occupy our attention, 

 that of the process of muscular contraction, J. R. Mayer occu- 

 pies so leading a position that a large proportion of the re- 

 searches which ha\e been done since the new era, which he had 

 so important a share in establi--hing, may be rightly considered 

 as the working out of principles enunciated in his treatise ' on 

 the relation between organic motion and exchange of material. 

 The most important of these were, as ex]iressed in his own 

 words: (i) " That the chemical force contained in the ingested 

 food and in the inhaled oxygen is the source of the motion and 

 heat which are the tv\-o products of animal life ; and (2) that 

 these products vary in amount with the chemical process which 

 produces them." Whatever may be the claims of Mayer to be 

 regarded as a great discover in physics, Uiere can be no doubt 



' J. R. Mayer, " Die organische Bewegung in ihrem Zusammenhange 

 mit dem Stoffwechsel : ein Eeitrag zur Naturkunde," Heiibronn, 1845. 



