392 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 298. 



of carrying on a natural process, a nucle- 

 ated cell is an organ in its simplest form. 

 In a unicellular animal or plant such an 

 organ exists in its most primitive stage. 

 The higher plants and animals again are 

 built up of multitudes of these organs, each 

 of which, whilst having its independent life, 

 is associated with the others, so that the 

 whole may act in unison for a common pur- 

 pose. As in one of your great factories each 

 spindle is engaged in twisting and winding 

 its own thread, it is at the same time inti- 

 mately associated with the hundreds of 

 other spindles in its immediate proximity, 

 in the manufacture of the yarn from which 

 the web of cloth is ultimately to be woven. 



It has taken more than fifty years of 

 hard and continuous work to bring our 

 knowledge of the structure and develop- 

 ment of the tissues and organs of plants 

 and animals up to the level of the present 

 day. Amidst the host of names of investi- 

 gators, both at home and abroad, who have 

 contributed to its progress, it may seem in- 

 vidious to particularize individuals. There 

 are, however, a few that I cannot forbear 

 to mention, whose claim to be named on 

 such an occasion as this will be generally 

 conceded. 



Botanists will, I think, acknowledge 

 "Wilhelm Hofmeister as a master in mor- 

 phology and embryology, Julius von Sachs 

 as the most important investigator in veg- 

 etable physiology during the last quarter 

 of a century, and Strasburger as a leader 

 in the study of the phenomena of nuclear 

 division. 



The researches of the veteran professor 

 of anatomy in Wurzburg, Albert von K61- 

 liker, have covered the entire field of ani- 

 mal histology. His first paper, published 

 fifty-nine years ago, was followed by a suc- 

 cession of memoirs and books on human 

 and comparative histology and embryology, 

 and culminated in his great treatise on the 

 structure of the brain, published in 1896. 



Notwithstanding the weight of more than 

 eighty years, he continues to prosecute his- 

 tological research, and has published the 

 results of his latest, though let us hope not 

 his last, work during the present year. 



Amongst our own countrymen, and be- 

 longing to the generation which has almost 

 passed away, was William Bowman. His 

 investigations between 1840 and 1850 on 

 the mucous membranes, muscular fiber, 

 and the structure of the kidney together 

 with his researches on the organs of sense, 

 were characterized by a power of observa- 

 tion and of interpreting difficult and com- 

 plicated appearances which has made his 

 memoirs on these subjects landmarks in 

 the historj' of histological inquiry. 



Of the younger generation of biologists 

 Francis Maitland Balfour, whose early 

 death is deeply deplored as a loss to Brit- 

 ish science, was one of the most distin- 

 guished. His powers of observation and 

 philosophic perception gave him a high 

 place as an original inquirer, and the charm 

 of his personality — for charm is not the 

 exclusive possession of the fairer sex — en- 

 deared him to his friends. 



GENERAL MORPHOLOGY. 



Along with the study of the origin and 

 structure of the tissues of organized bodies, 

 much attention has been given during the 

 century to the parts or organs in plants and 

 animals, with the view of determining 

 where and how they take their rise, the 

 order of their formation, the changes which 

 they pass through in the early stages of 

 development, and their relative positions 

 in the organism to which they belong. In- 

 vestigations on these lines are spoken of as 

 morphological, and are to be distinguished 

 from the study of their physiological or 

 functional relations, though both are neces- 

 sary for the full comprehension of the liv- 

 ing organism. 



The first to recognize that morphological 



