Award of the Boyle Medal lo George H. Pethybridge. 229 



a third Phytophthora of this type has been discovered,^ and worlc is now in 

 progress there on still another species, in which both modes of development 

 obtain in one and the same individual. 



It may be mentioned that within the last couple of years Mr. P. A. 

 Murphy lias placed the coping stone on Dr. Pethybridge's work by describing 

 the cytological details of this most interesting method of fertilization. 



Dr. Pethybridge has also carried out other important researches, chiefly 

 connected with plant pathology. The results of many of these, like those on 

 the potato blight, have been communicated to and published by the Eoyal 

 Dublin Society. Although from the scientific point of view none of these 

 investigations is so unique and so unexpected in its outcome as that on the 

 potato blight, yet they have yielded important results, increasing and 

 consolidating our knowledge of obscure forms of life, and providing a founda- 

 tion from which future methods of practical control may be elaborated. 



Looking at Dr. Pethybridge's work from another point of view, it is 

 proper to record here that as Economic Botanist and Head of the Seeds and 

 Plant Disease Division of the Department of Agriculture and Technical 

 Instruction for Ireland, he has been responsible for its organization and 

 for direction of research in vegetable pathology. 



His work has not been carried out solely within the permanent 

 laboratories at headquarters. He has introduced an important innovation 

 by having field laboratories established in the actual areas where the 

 particular diseases under investigation are most prevalent. There the 

 worker can be in the closest possible contact with his patients during 

 practically the whole period of development. It was in these laboratories 

 that most of Dr. Pethybridge's researches, including that on the potato 

 blight, were carried out. 



Owing to Dr. Pethybridge's initiative, the study of plant diseases in this 

 country has been greatly stimulated, and, as a result of his scientific spirit, 

 the same degree of thoroughness and rigorous experimental technique is 

 being applied to their investigation as it is customary to expect when diseases 

 of man and of animals are being studied. Thus it is fair to say that the 

 science of Phytopathology has benefited from his work not only through his 

 actual contributions to knowledge, but also by his example in discarding 

 merely observational and descriptive methods of work, and in substituting 

 for them experimental methods of the most exact description. 



A list of Dr. Pethybridge's chief published contributions to science is 

 appended. 



' Other species have also been described in India and America. 



