1080 REPORT—1885. 
hundred cases a complete restoration of the natural upright position and sigmoid 
form of the body, accompanied by the recovery of good health with the enjoy- 
ment of prolonged life. 
SupPLEMENTARY Mergrtinc.—BOTANY. 
1. On the Application of the Anatomical Method to the Determination 
of the Materials of the Linnean and other Herbaria. By Professor 
L. RapiKoFEr. hat 
As I have set forth in a speech on the anatomical method, delivered before - 
the Munich Academy in 1883, a real furtherance of systematic botany may be 
looked for from the employment of anatomical and histological characters. 
It is to this application that I have given the designation Anatomical Method, 
and I have exerted myself for years to bring it to bear on systematic botany. 
For my own part, I have sought to rely upon anatomical characters in my 
labours on the Sapindaceze, and I may venture to say successfully, especially as far 
as the genus Serjania is concerned, by making use of the anomalous structure of 
the wood of these tropical climbers in defining the species. On this subject I had 
an opportunity of addressing this Association at Norwich in 1868; therefore I will 
not enlarge upon it now. 
After haying thus initiated the anatomical method and found my expectations 
therefrom fulfilled, I endeavoured to apply it to other families, such as the Acan- 
thaceze, the Sapotacez, the Capparidez, &c., as more fully detailed in the before- 
mentioned speech. 
Other botanists, I am gratified to see, have followed me in this direction, par- 
ticularly some of my pupils at the University of Munich, some of whom, like Dr. 
Hobein, I have induced to investigate isolated families in relation to their anato- 
mical peculiarities; others, Dr. Bokorny and Dr. Blenk for example, to trace 
certain anatomical characters found in several families all through these families, 
in order to determine the constancy and systematic value of such characters for 
each of these families. 
By means of the results thus obtained, and to be obtained, I think it is now 
possible, without very great difficulties, to clear up the doubts respecting the frag- 
mentary materials of the important older Herbaria. 
In the first place comes the Linnean Herbarium and the Herbarium of the 
Hortus Cliffortianus, formed by Linneus, and then the Herbaria of Linneus’s pre- 
decessors, Plukenet, Sloane, Paul Hermann, &c., upon whose plants Linneus 
founded the majority of his species. 
Thanks to the care of English botanists and English learned societies, these 
Herbaria, so important for the correct interpretation of Linnean species, have been 
faithfully preserved intact for a hundred years and more, up to the present day. 
And now at the present day is possible what formerly was impossible, namely 
an exhaustive review of the contents of these Herbaria with references to the 
writings of their former possessors—now, with the aid of the anatomical method, 
this might be attempted, and should in my opinion be attempted without further 
delay. These Herbaria should henceforth not merely be preserved ; they should, 
by the diffusion of a new light on their contents, become useful to everyone in a 
scientific sense, even to those who are unable to look through them. 
As far as the Linnean Herbarium is concerned, Sir Edward Smith in his day 
endeavoured to extract therefrom a correct conception of the Linnean species; but 
the slender scientific means ot his time enabled him to arrive at the goal in only a 
few instances. Nevertheless, his contributions to Rees’s ‘ Cyclopedia’ on this sub- 
ject are of great value, and deserve republication in a collective form, in order to 
make them generally available, as I suggested in the speech alluded to at the 
beginning. 
