OcrToBER 5, 1899] 
WATURE 
yi 
The last sentence has, perhaps, given an indication of my 
solution of the question. The Imperial Institute at South Ken- 
sington has now been in existence for some time, and has passed 
through various phases. But its most enthusiastic supporters 
will scarcely claim for it entire success in its mission. What- 
ever may be the underlying causes, it must be admitted that 
such popular support as it possesses is scarcely founded on the 
performance of its functions as an Imperial Institute. It would 
seem, therefore, that something more is wanted—a more definite 
raison @’étre—than it has at present, and this I think it will find 
in being converted into such a museum of anthropology as I 
have indicated, but, of course, as a Government institution. I 
am by no means an advocate of the creation of new institutions, 
if the old ones can adequately do their work, nor do I think 
that anything but ill would result from a general partition of 
the contents of the British Museum. The separation of the 
natural history from the other collections was painful, though 
inevitable, and no such severe operation can be performed with- 
out loss in some direction. But the remoyal of the ethno- 
graphical and anthropological collections from the British 
Museum to the galleries of the Imperial Institute would possess 
so many manifest advantages that the disadvantages need 
scarcely be considered. The Government has already taken 
over a portion of the building for the benefit of the University 
of London. The remaining portion would provide ample ac- 
commodation for the anthropological museum, as well as for the 
commercial side, that might properly and usefully be continued ; 
its proximity to the natural history branch of the British Museum 
would render control by the Trustees easy; the Indian col- 
lections, which formed so important a feature in the scheme of 
1877, are at this moment under the same roof; and finally the 
University of London has but to found a chair of anthropology, 
and the whole of the necessary conditions of success are 
fulfilled. 
I have but little doubt that, wherever it might be placed, the 
creation of a distinct department of anthropology would of itself 
tend to the enrichment of the collections. It must be re- 
membered that it is only since 1883, when the Christy collection 
was removed to the British Museum, that the ethnographical 
collections there can claim any kind of completeness. Until 
then one small room contained the few important objects of this 
kind that had survived from the voyages of Cook, Wallis and 
the other early voyagers. The public did not expect to find 
ethnography in the British Museum, and it is, in fact, only 
within the last few years that it has been generally realised that 
a gallery of ethnography exists there. If it were placed in such 
a building as the Imperial Institute, it would still remain part of 
the British Museum, and be under the guardianship of its 
Trustees ; but it would obviously command more attention and 
support from the public than can be expected while it remains 
an integral part of a large institution which has as many aims as 
it has departments. 
I began this address by stating that it would have a practical 
application. I trust that to others it may seem that what I have 
ventured to suggest is not only possible of achievement, but 
would also be beneficial to the branch of science that we repre- 
sent. I should like to add that, as far as possible, I have tried 
to state the case as it would appear to one who regarded the 
situation from an entirely independent standpoint, and wishing 
only to discover the most practical solution of what must be ad- 
mitted to bea difficult question. My allegiance to the British 
Museum, however, may well have tinged my views, unnoticed 
by myself. There are many other subjects that might well have 
formed the subject of an address at the present time. On such 
occasions as these, however, it is, I think, advisable to select a 
subject with especial reference to the needs of the time, and I 
know of nothing that is at the present moment more urgent in 
this particular direction, and in my judgment it will tend greatly 
towards the true advancement of science, the object we all have 
at heart. 
SECTION I. 
PHYSIOLOGY, 
OPENING ADDREss By J. N. LANGLEY, F.R.S., PRESIDENT 
OF THE SECTION. 
ONE might suppose that physiology, dealing as it does for 
the most part with structures—such as nerves, and muscles, and 
glands—which every one has and has heard of, would be 
eminently a science the newer aspects of which every one could 
NO. 1562, VOL. 60] 
readily understand. And in this supposition one would be 
encouraged by the frequency of the references in English litera- 
ture to some part of our inner mechanism. More than a century 
and a quarter ago we find: ‘“‘If ’tis wrote against anything, 
‘tis wrote an’ please your worships against the spleen, in order 
by a more frequent and more convulsive elevation and depression 
of the diaphragm, and the succussations of the intercostal and 
abdominal muscles in laughter, to drive the gall and other bitter 
juices from the gall-bladder, liver and sweetbread of his Majesty’s 
subjects, with all the inimicitious passions which belong to them, 
down into their duodenums.” 
It must, however, be recognised that many subjects which are 
most interesting to the physiologist either involve so much 
special knowledge, or are so beset with technical terms, that it 
is difficult to make clear to others even their general drift. 
Iam not without uneasiness that my subject to-day may be 
found to fall within this category. I propose to consider some 
relations of the nerves which pass from the brain and spinal cord, 
and convey impulses to the other tissues of the body—the motor 
or efferent nerves ; and in especial the relations of those efferent 
nerves which run to the tissues over which we have little or no 
voluntary control. It is as well to say at once that none of the 
general conclusions which I lay before you are encrusted with 
universal acceptance. One or two have been subjects of con- 
troversy for the last fifty years; others are too young to have 
met even with contradiction. I do not propose to give you an 
account of the various theories which have been put forward on 
the questions I touch upon, nor do I propose to point out how 
far the views I advocate are due to others. I am concerned 
only to state what seems to me to be the most probable view 
with regard to certain problems which have been emerging from 
obscurity in recent year. 
Limitations in the Control of the Nervous System over the 
Tissues of the Body.—In view of the conspicuous manner in 
which nervous impulses affect every-day life, we are perhaps apt 
to over-estimate the character and range of the influence exercised 
directly by the nervous system. 
From the early part of this century one way of regarding the 
body has been to consider it as made up of tissues grouped 
together in varying number and amount. Each tissue has its 
characteristic features under the microscope. We need not 
enter into the question as to which of the commonly recognised: 
tissues of the body are to be regarded as forming a class by them- 
selves and which are to be regarded as subdivisions of a class. 
The point I wish to lay stress on is that in any broad classi- 
fication not more than two tissues are known to be supplied 
with approximate completeness with efferent nerve-fibres. The 
striated muscular tissue, which forms, amongst other parts of 
the body, the muscles of the limbs and trunk, receives in all 
regions nerve-fibres from the brain or spinal cord. And the 
unstriated muscular tissue, which forms, amongst other parts 
of the body, the contractile part of the alimentary canal and 
of the blood-vessels, is in nearly, and possibly in all, regions 
similarly supplied. 
The glandular division of epithelial tissue in some parts 
responds promptly and strikingly to nervous impulses, but in 
some parts the response is feeble, and in others no nervous 
impulse has been shown to reach the tissue. The connective 
tissue which exists all over the body, and which in its varied 
forms of connective tissue proper—cartilage, bone, teeth, 
epithelioid cells—makes so considerable part of it, is in mam- 
mals, so far as we know, destitute of efferent nerve-fibres. 
The epidermic cells, which form a covering for the body, 
the ciliated cells, the reproductive cells, do not visibly respond 
to any nerve stimulus. And the myriads of blood corpuscles, 
which in different ways are in incessant action for the general 
welfare, are naturally out of range of nervous impulses. Ac- 
cording to our present state of knowledge, large portions of 
the organism live their own lives uninfluenced, except in- 
directly, by the storms and stresses of the central nervous 
system. No nervous impulse can pass to them to make them 
contract or to make them secrete, or to quicken or slacken 
their inherent activity. The nervous system can only influence 
them through the medium of some other tissue by changing the 
quantity or quality of the surrounding fluid. 
Regarding, then, the body from the point of view of the 
control exercised by the nervous system on the other con- 
stituents, we have first to recognise that this control is in 
considerable part indirect only, that the several tissues are in 
varying degree under direct control, and that different parts of 
