30 Respiration. 



simplest possible apparatus with perfect accuracy and great 

 rapidity. The method was new, and the easy way in which it 

 could be carried out gave rise to great hopes in the medical 

 profession that they would be able to apply this method to the 

 human body both in health and disease. He had great 

 pleasure in moving that vote of thanks to Mr. Barcroft for his 

 lecture. 



Professor Thompson, in seconding the motion, said Mr. 

 Barcroft had handled an exceedingly difficult subject with 

 great skill. He came to Belfast with the reputation of being 

 a neat and skilful experimenter, and he had very successfully 

 maintained that reputation. He had indeed a very difficult 

 subject to make clear to them, but he had managed to make 

 clear to everybody in the room what the essential features o* 

 respiration are. He (Professor Thompson) had great pleasure 

 in seconding the motion. 



The Chairman, in putting the motion to the meeting 

 said they had come there that night to learn something of 

 respiration, and they had not been told what sort of process it 

 was, but they had been made to see it. Every step of the 

 process had been shown them most successfully, and not one 

 tittle of the experimental truth had in any degree failed. As 

 they came there that night to learn something of respiration, 

 he would advise them when they went to their respective 

 homes to take a sheet of paper and jot down the particulars of 

 the facts shown them, and in that way they would remember, 

 have before them, an account of respiration such as, he 

 ventured to say, they had never had before, and were not 

 likely to get again for a long time. The various demonstrations 

 had been most admirable, complete, and perfect. It was rarely 

 indeed they found when a series of experiments had to be 

 performed that some little thing did not go wrong, but 

 nothing of the sort had happened that night from start to 

 finish. He trusted that in the study of physiology, which is 

 becoming an experimental science for the purpose of the 

 investigation of the process of life, Mr. Barcroft would not only 



