182 THE president's address. 



on the "Tympanum," whicli I supplied to the British and Foreign 

 Medico-Chirurgical Review. Thus it found its way to America, 

 and their fructified after a fashion that I had not foreseen. In 

 1873, a pamphlet on the "Functions of the Eustachian Tube," 

 was published at St. Louis ; a copy of which was posted to the 

 care of the editor of the Review for me. In it I found myself 

 lavishly praised for special acquaintance with the subject, and 

 a string of quotations taken from the article arrayed in support 

 of the views propounded by the author. Nevertheless, there is 

 a paragraph, in the midst of the text from which these quotations 

 are obtained, which is dexterously and silently skipped. It 

 commenced with the affirmation that " an open Eustachian tube 

 is not attended with deafness," and justified it upon evidence 

 that is irreconcilable with the essential purpose of the pamphlet, 

 which was to represent such a condition of the tube as an actual 

 cause of that ailment ! 



Such a style of angling by an American for a flattering review 

 of his essay in this country may seem preposterous. Yet, I can 

 cap this anecdote with another, which evinces that an Englishman 

 may be still more infatuated in paying me a like attention. 



Towards the close of last year, I received by post a pamphlet, 

 with compliments in the name of the author written on it, " On 

 the Visible Stellation, &c., of the Crystalline Lens of the Human 

 Eye." Being reprinted from a volume of Ophthalmic Hospital 

 Reports. The autograph notwithstanding, there is no mention 

 of my name in the pamphlet, although there are appeals to 

 entoptical authorities, i.e., to such writers as have applied the 

 science of optics to the investigation of the interior of their 

 own eyes, and that the sole monograph on this process ever 

 published in any language is a little work of mine on " Entoptics 

 with its Uses in Physiology and Medicine," which, in the words 

 of the preface, "in dealing with the subject primarily from my 

 own point of view, does not fail to make the reader acquainted 

 with the views of other writers." In accordance with this 

 promise, this monograph comprises a summary of Listing's 

 entoptical researches on the crystalline lens, as related in his 

 " Beitrag zux physiologischen Optik" (Contribution to Physio- 

 logical Optics), two passages of which, as indicative of literal 

 translation, are marked by inverted commas. The first of these 

 is rendered from a preliminary remark at p. 47, that the 



