PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS FEROUSSON. Xlll 



membors know of the interest he took in the Institute's 

 work. Whenever I had opportunity to talk to him I found 

 him to be a mine of information on mechanics and on the 

 properties of metals. He was a man of sterling character 

 and was loved and admired by all with whom he came in 

 contact. 



Renew of Year's Work. 



The papers presented to us this last year have been rather 

 under the averag;e — in number, not in quality; for as usual 

 some of them give the results of research extending over 

 months and years. We were all struck by the ingenuity 

 displayed by Mr. Henderson in the construction of his 

 apparatus from the material at his disposal, apparatus which 

 gave him results enabling him to take issue with the theories 

 of some of our leading experimentalists who have access 

 to all the fine instruments which money can buy. 



Dr. Harris, in order to complete his research on neuro- 

 muscular rhythms and the tremor of tonus, requires some- 

 '^hing that cannot be built in the college laboratory. • Let 

 us hope that the doctor may soon meet some wealthy 

 individual who will give him a vibration-free building or 

 one at least as free as possible from vibration as human 

 ingenuity can devise Dr. Harris, I see from current liter- 

 ature, has been continuing, in collaboration with Dr. Creigh- 

 ton, the research into the properties of the enzyme reductase, 

 concerning which they have in previous sessions given, papers 

 to this Institute. One fact they note, viz., that reductase 

 is not affected by exposure to the discharges from radium 

 bromide, and this has an important bearing on the attempts 

 being made to use these discharges in the treatment of 

 certain diseases. For those taking a layman's interest 

 in this subject, I would refer to an address delivered this 

 year before the Dublin Clinical Club by Prof. Joli. After 

 stating the theory of the action of beta and gamma rays, 

 he drew a parallel between the cell and the photographic 



