370 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 



The Treasurer (Dr. Beale, F.R.S.) read his Statement of the 

 Income and Expenditure of the Society for 1884 (infra, p. 373). 



Dr. Millar moved, and Mr. Dowdcswell seconded, the adoption of 

 the Statement, which was carried unanimously. 



The President then read his Address (supra, p. 177), in which he 

 dealt with the life-history of a septic organism hitherto unrecorded. 

 The Address was illustrated by transparencies (thrown on a screen 

 by Messrs. How) and was listened to with marked attention by the 

 largest audience present at an Annual Meeting, at any rate for 

 many years. 



Dr. Carpenter, C.B., said that the pleasing duty had been assigned 

 to him of moving a vote of thanks to their excellent and highly 

 esteemed President for the very admirable and interesting address to 

 which they had just listened. He began, as they were aware, by 

 giving them a summary of the doctrines of abiogenesis and bio- 

 genesis, but there was one omission in his remarks, due no doubt to 

 his modesty, but which ought not to bo omitted, and that was that 

 there was no class of facts which had contributed so much to the 

 settlement of some of these important questions as the researches 

 which their President himself had made. They would no doubt 

 remember that the great supporter of abiogenesis, Dr. Bastian, 

 relied upon the appearance of organisms in flasks which had been 

 exposed to high temperatures, but Dr. Dallinger had shown that 

 though the organisms might be destroyed the spores could still exist 

 under these conditions. He quite agreed that the two sides of the 

 question — pathogenic and morphological — should be studied sepa- 

 rately, and that the observations in the latter case should be carried 

 out in the way adopted by the President, by isolating and keeping 

 the object continuously under observation until its whole life-history 

 had been ascertained. But the pathogenic asjiect was also of great 

 importance and must be worked out with similar care. Dr. Roberts, 

 of Manchester, who was not only a very careful observer, but also a 

 man of very large experience in diseases, wrote a pajjer some time 

 ago entirely on Darwinian lines, and he there took some very striking 

 examples — such as the production of the bitter almond from the 

 sweet almond, the one being perfectly wholesome, but the other 

 containing a powerful poison. He had himself always maintained 

 that in the study of species it was necessary to consider the inter- 

 mediate as well as the complete forms, and had carried this out with 

 great advantage in the case of the Orbitolitcs thirty years ago. 

 Just so he believed the study of the intermediate forms of disease 

 to be necessary. A short time ago he wrote a paper bearing on this 

 subject in the ' Nineteenth Centuiy,' and since then he had received 

 a great number of letters in which many instances had been adduced 

 showing that there were intermediate stages of disease. He desired 

 most heartily to congratulate the Society and also the President 

 upon the admirable and successful work which he had described to 

 them, and upon the completeness of the life-history which he liad 

 been able to give them as the results of work, moreover, which 



