ADDRESS. l3 



superseded ether and nitrons oxide, thoagli, with improved methods of 

 administration, the latter are now coming into favour again. 



The only other reference to Physiology which time permits me to 

 make, is the great discovery of the reflex action, as it is called, of the 

 nervous centres. Reflex actions had been long ago observed, and it had 

 been shown by Whytt and Hales that they were more or less independent 

 of volition. But the general opinion was that these movements indicated 

 some feeble power of sensation independently of the brain, and it was 

 not till the year 1832 that the ' reflex action ' of certain nervous centres 

 was made known to us by Marshall Hall, and almost at the same period 

 by Johannes Miiller. 



Few branches of science have made more rapid progress in the last 

 half-century than that which deals with the ancient condition of Man. 

 When our Association was founded it was generally considered that the 

 human race suddenly appeared on the scene, about 6,000 years ago, after 

 the disappearance of the extinct mammalia, and when Europe, both as 

 regards physical conditions and the other animals by which it was in- 

 habited, was pretty much in the same state as in the period covered 

 by Greek and Roman history. Since then the persevering researches of 

 Layard, Rawlinson, Botta and others have made known to us, not only 

 the statues and palaces of the ancient Assyrian monarchs, but even their 

 libraries ; the cuneiform characters have been deciphered, and we can not 

 only see, but read, in the British Museum, the actual contemporary re- 

 cords, on burnt clay cylinders, of the events recorded in the historical 

 books of the Old Testament and in the pages of Herodotus. The re- 

 searches in Egypt also seem to have satisfactorily established the fact 

 that the pyramids themselves are at least 6,000 years old, while it is ob- 

 vious that the Assyrian and Egyptian monarchies cannot suddenly have 

 attained to the wealth and power, the state of social organisation, and 

 progress in the arts, of which we have before us, preserved by the sand 

 of the desert from the ravages of man, such wonderful proofs. 



In Europe, the writings of the earliest historians and poets indicated 

 that, before iron came into general use, there was a time when bronze was 

 the ordinary material of weapons, axes, and other cutting implements, 

 and though it seemed a priori improbable that a compound of copper and 

 tin should have preceded the simple metal iron, nevertheless the researches 

 of archaeologists have shown that there really was in Europe a ' Bronze 

 Age,' which at the dawn of history was just giving way to that of ' Iron.' 



The contents of ancient graves, buried in many cases so that their 

 owner might carry some at least of his wealth with him to the world of 

 spirits, have proved very instructive. More especially the results obtained 

 by Nilsson in Scandinavia, by Hoare and Borlase, Bateman, Greenwell, 

 and Pitt-Rivers, in our own country, and the contents of the rich cemetery 

 at Hallstadt, left no room for doubt as to the existence of a Bronze Age ; 

 but we get a completer idea of the condition of Man at this period from 

 the Swiss lake-villages, first made known to us by Keller, and subsequently 



