TBANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. — DEPT. ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 593 



DEPARTMENT OF ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 



Chaikman of the Department— E. McDonnell, Esq., M.D., F.B.S. 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 1878. 

 The Department did not meet, 



FRIDAY, AUGUST 16, 1878. 



Dr. McDonnell gave the following Address : — 



Since this Association met twelve months ago, the science of physiology has suf- 

 fered an irreparable loss. In February last, Claude Bernard died, in the sixty-fifth 

 year of his age. He was interred with a degree of pomp never in this country, 

 and rarely even in France, accorded to men of science. His country showed how 

 highly and how justly they estimated the merit of a man who — gentle, unobtrusive, 

 modest — by the greatness of his genius and the brilliancy of his many discoveries, 

 shed a lustre on the land which gave him birth. 



It was my privilege to have been at one time a pupil of this illustrious physio- 

 logist. It will be my pride if I can show to a thoughtful and cultivated audience, 

 such as I have the honour to address, that the discoveries of my honoured master, 

 although of necessity made by experiment on animals, have added much to that 

 stock of knowledge which has conferred the greatest benefits upon mankind. 



In an address like this, limited to a short time, it would not be possible to give 

 a detailed account of the work accomplished by Bernard. To do so would be to 

 give a history of the progress of physiology for the last five-and-thirty years. His 

 researches were so extensive and some of his discoveries so vast, that, by com- 

 parison, they seemed to make others appear small, as the gigantic Oalifornian pine 

 seems to dwarf a goodly-sized oak which grows alongside it. Hence we speak of 

 Bernard's less important researches — of his minor discoveries, although of sufficient 

 magnitude to have seemed great if made by another. Of these I cannot speak at 

 length. Yet some of my hearers well know that the services which Bernard has 

 rendered to science by his researches on the pneumogastric nerves, the fifth pair, the 

 chorda tympani, the facial, etc., are not small. Assuredly, the same may be said 

 for his observations on " recurrent sensibility ; " on the blood pressure and the gases 

 of the blood ; on the variations of colour in this fluid according to the active or 

 passive condition of the functions of the organ traversed by it ; on the variations 

 of temperature during these conditions of functional activity or inactivity ; on the 

 elective elimination by the glands of substances introduced into the economy, or of 

 those which, as morbid products, accumulate in the system as the result of certain 

 morbid states ; on the special character of the action of the varieties of the salivary 

 I secretions ; upon the influence of the nervous centres on the secretion of saliva ; on 

 the electric phenomena manifested in nerve and muscle ; on albuminuria connected 

 with lesions of the nervous system ; and (notably in its important practical bear- 

 ings on uraemia) on the modifications of the secretions of the stomach and intes- 

 tines after arrest of the elimination of urea through the natural channels. 



1878. Q Q 



