602 
tempting to tell what has been the history 
of the science to which a Section is devoted 
during the brief interval which has elapsed 
since the Section last met ; to try and catch 
physiology, or any other science, as it rushes 
through the brief period of some twelve 
months seemed to me not unlike photo- 
graphing the flying bullet without adequate 
apparatus ; the result could only be either 
a blurred ora delusive image. But I be- 
thought me that this is not the first, we 
hope it will not be the last, time that the 
British Association has met in the Western 
Hemisphere ; and though the events of the 
thirteen years which have slipped by since 
the meeting at Montreal in 1884 might 
seem to furnish a very slender oat on which 
to pipe a presidential address, I have hoped 
that I might be led to sound upon it some 
few notes which might be listened to. 
And indeed, though perhaps when we 
come to look into it closely almost every 
period would seem to have a value of its 
own, the past thirteen years do, in a certain 
sense, mark a break between the physiology 
of the past and that of the future. When 
the Association met at Montreal in 1884, 
Darwin, whose pregnant ideas have swayed 
physiology in the limited sense of that 
word, as well as that broader study of living 
beings which we sometimes call biology, as 
indeed they have every branch of natural 
knowledge, had been taken from us only 
some two years before, and there were still 
alive most of the men who did the great 
works of physiology of the middle and lat- 
ter half of this century. The gifted Claude 
Bernard had passed away some years be- 
fore, but his peers might have been present 
at Montreal. Bowman, whose classic 
works on muscle and kidney stand out as 
peaks in the physiological landscape of the 
past, models of researches finished and com- 
plete so far as the opportunities of the time 
would allow, fruitful beginnings and ad- 
mirable guides for the labors of others. 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Vout. VI. No. 147. 
Brown-Sequard, who shares with Bernard 
the glory of having opened up the great 
modern path of the influence of the nervous 
system on vascular and thus on nutritional 
events, and who, if he made some mistakes, 
did many things which will last for all time. 
Brucke, whose clear judgment, as shown in 
his digestive and other work, gave perma- 
nent value to whatever he put forth. Du 
Bois-Reymond, who, if he labored in a nar- 
row path, set a brilliant example of the 
way in which exact physical analysis may 
be applied to the phenomena of living be- 
ings, and in other ways had a powerful in- 
fluence on the progress of physiology. Don- 
ders, whose mind seemed to have caught 
something of the better qualities of the 
physiological organ to which his professional 
life was devoted, and our knowledge of 
which he so largely extended, so sharply 
did he focus his mental eye on every phys- 
iological problem to which he turned —and 
these were many and varied. Helmholtz 
whose great works on vision and hearing’ 
to say nothing of his earlier distinctly 
physiological researches, make us feel that 
if physics gained much, physiology lost 
even more when the physiologist turned 
aside to more distinctly physical inquiries. 
Lastly, and not least, Ludwig, who by his 
own hands or through his pupils did so 
much to make physiology the exact science 
which it is to-day, but which it was not 
when he began his work. I say lastly, but 
I might add the name of one who, though 
barred by circumstances from contributing 
much directly to physiology by way of re- 
search, so used his powerful influence in 
many ways in aid of physiological interests 
as to have helped the science onward to no 
mean extent, at least among English-speak- 
ing people—I mean Huxley. All these 
might have met at Montreal. They have 
all left us now. Among the peers of the 
men J have mentioned whose chief labors 
were carried on in the forties, the fifties 
