xviii President's Address for the year 1887. 



years 1884 to 1887 with only 2 deaths ; while the labours of 

 two English surgeons in this directions, during the past 80 

 years, are calculated to have added to the lives of their 

 patients an aggregate of nearly 43,000 years. Up to the 

 Victorian era, surgery was in its infancy ; during the 

 Victorian jubilee it has advanced to a lusty maahood. The 

 present reign we may claim to have witnessed a development 

 as great and beneficent in this direction as in that of rapidity 

 and convenience in travelling, and prompt communication of 

 information. 



These then are the great practical advances, the applica- 

 tions of scientific investigations to ends of public utility, 

 that must through all future history be held to distinguish 

 the reign of Queen Victoria. 



In other directions, too numerous to mention, has there 

 been steady growth, increased efficiency, and extended 

 application, but the above-mentioned advances are unique, 

 startling, and epoch-making. The beautiful art of photo- 

 graphy, the improvements in textile manufactures, the 

 discovery of new therapeutic agents, the application of 

 machinery in a thousand ways to lighten human labour, the 

 general adoption of gas for lighting, and the more recent 

 appHcation of electricity, the invention of the telephone, the 

 introduction of tramways in large cities, improved roads in 

 country parts, the bridging of streams and estuaries, or the 

 construction of tunnels beneath them, and a thousand other 

 useful improvements are second only in importance to the 

 more striking advances first mentioned. 



In the realm of pure science, as distinguished from usefiil 

 application, the three most salient facts are the establish- 

 ment of the doctrines of the molecular constitution of matter, 

 of the conservation of energy and of evolution, and with 

 regard to these, I cannot do better than quote from a recent 

 deliverance of no less an authority than Professor Huxley. 

 He says : '' I have said that our epoch can produce achieve- 

 ments in physical science of greater moment than any other 

 has to show, advisedly ; and I think there are three great 

 products of our time that justify the assertion. One of 



