230 Annual Report of the Council. 



he published a few years ago, on Chemical Affinity : 

 a term discussed with precision for the first time by 

 Berthollet, for whom, indeed, Meyer had the profoundest 

 admiration. The osmotic pressure and ion solution theory 

 of his disciples Meyer felt some difficulty in accepting. 

 Among his experimental researches must be mentioned 

 those on the blood, in which he proved that oxygen is not 

 dissolved in but combined with the blood, and that it is 

 displaced directly from it in molecular proportions by carbon 

 monoxide ; investigations on spectrophotometry, rates of 

 reaction, etc. In devising new modes of preparation of 

 known substances, and in the construction of apparatus 

 Meyer was particularly happy. Nor must we forget the 

 unselfish labour which led to the publication, in conjunction 

 with his friend and colleague Seubert, of a recalculation of all 

 the atomic weights at that time determined. Lothar Meyer 

 will be well remembered personally by those who saw his 

 stately figure at the Manchester Meeting of the British 

 Association, in 1887. Since that time several of our Uni- 

 versity students have gone to work with him in the little 

 town in the Wiirtemberg hills. They have all brought 

 back the warmest gratitude and respect for a man who was 

 as genial as he was learned. He was elected an honorary 

 member of the Society in 1889. P. J. H. 



Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand Von Helmholtz was 

 born August 31st, 1821, at Potsdam, where his father was 

 Professor at the Gymnasium. His mother, whose maiden 

 name was Penn, was of Scotch descent. He was educated 

 as a medical student, and started his career as a military 

 surgeon, a position he held till the year 1848, when he was 

 appointed assistant of the Anatomical Museum of Berlin 

 and teacher of Anatomy at the Academy of Arts. Only 

 a year later he was made Professor of Physiology at 

 Konigsberg where he remained till 1856. He occupied in 



