708 EEPOET— 1893. 



Section B.— CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 

 Pkesident of the Section — Professor J. Emeeson Reynolds, M.D., Sc.D., F.R.S. 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER U. 



The Pkesident delivered the following Address : — 



At the Nottingham Meeting of the British Association in 1866, Dr. H. Becce 

 Jones addressed the Section over which I have now the honour to preside on the 

 place of Chemical Science in Medical Education. Without dwelling on this topie 

 to-day, it is an agreeable duty to acknowledge the foresight of my predecessor as 

 to the direction of medical progress. Twenty-seven years ago the methods of inquiry 

 and instruction in medicine were essentially based on the formal lines of the last 

 generation. Dr. Bence Jones saw that modern methods of research in chemistry — 

 and in the experimental sciences generally — must profoundly influence medicine^ 

 and he urged the need of fuller training of medical students in those sciences. 



The anticipated influence is now operative as a powerful factor in the 

 general progress of medicine and medical education ; but much remains to be 

 desired in regard to the chemical portion of that education. In the later stages 

 of it undue importance is still attached to the knowledge of substances rather than, 

 of principles ; of products instead of the broad characters of the chemical changes 

 in which they are formed. Without this higher class of instruction it is unreason- 

 able to expect an intelligent perception of complex physiological and pathological 

 processes which are chemical in character, or much real appreciation of modern 

 pharmacological research. I have li'.tle doubt, however, that the need for this- 

 fuller chemical education will soon be so strongly felt that the necessary reform 

 will come from within a profession which has given ample proof in recent years of 

 its zeal in the cause of scientific progress. 



In our own branch of science the work of the year has been substantial in 

 character, if almost unmarked by discoveries of popular interest. We may probably 

 place in the latter category the measure of success which the skill of Moissan has 

 enabled him to attain in the artificial production of the diamond form of carbon, 

 apparently in minute crystals similar to those recognised by Koenig, Mallard, 

 Daubr^e, and by Friedel in the supposed meteorite of Canon de Diablo in Arizona. 

 Members of the Section will probably have the opportunity of examining some of 

 the-se artificial diamonds through the courtesy of M. Moissan, who has also, at my 

 request, been so good as to arrange for us a demonstration of the properties of the 

 element fluorine, which he succeeded in isolating in 1887. 



Not less interesting or valuable are the studies of Dr.Perkin, on electro-magnetio 

 rotation ; of Lord Rayleigh, on the relative densities of gases ; of Dewar, on 

 chemical relations at extremely low temperatures ; of Clowes, on exact measurements 

 of flame-cap indications aff"orded by Miners' testing lamps ; of Horace Brown and 

 Morris, on the chemistry and physiology of foliage leaves, by which they have been 

 led to the startling conclusion that cane-sugar is the first sugar produced during the 

 assimilation of carbon, and that starch is formed at its expense as a more stable 



