1866.] M.Y.M\x\kQ on the Anatomy of the Fovea centralis. 189 



The votes of the Fellows present having been collected, the following 

 Candidates were declared to be duly elected into the Society : — 



John Charles Buckniil, M.D. 

 Rev. Frederick William Farrar. 

 WilUam Augustus Guy, M.B. 

 James Hector, M.D. 

 John William Kaye, Esq. 

 Hugo Miiller, Ph.D. 

 Charles Murchison, M.D. 

 William Henry Perkin, Esq. 



The Ven. John Henry Pratt, M.A. 

 Capt. George Henry Richards, R.N. 

 Thomas Richardson, Esq., M.A. 

 William Henry Leighton Russell, 

 Esq. 



Rev. William Selwyn, D.D. 

 Rev. Richard Townsend, M.A. 

 Henry Watts, B.A. 



June 14, 1866. 



Lieut.-General SABINE, President, in the Chair. 



The Rev. F. W. Farrar, Dr. Charles Murchison, Captain Richards, R.N., 

 Mr. W. H. L. Russell, and Mr. Henry Watts, were admitted into the 

 Society. 



Pursuant to notice given at the last Ordinary Meeting, Franz Cornelius 

 Donders, George Friedrich Bernhard Riemann, and Gustav Rose, were 

 balloted for and elected Foreign Members of the Society. 



The following papers were read : — 



I. ^' On the Anatomy of the Fovea centralis of the Human 

 Retina.^' ByJ. W. Hulke, F.R.C.S., Assistant Surgeon to the 

 Middlesex and Royal London Ophthalmic Hospitals. Commu- 

 nicated by Wm. Bowman, Esq. Received May 26, 1866. 

 (Abstract) . 



1 . The Fovea centralis is a minute circular pit in the inner surface of 

 the retina, made by the radial divergence of the cone-fibres from a central 

 point, by the thinning and the outward curving of the inner retinal layers 

 towards this point, and by the peripheral location of the outer granules 

 belonging to the central cones. 



2. The inner surface of the retina declines in a rapid uniform curve from 

 the edge to the centre of the fovea, and very gradually from the edge to- 

 wards the ora retinae ; so that the edge of the fovea is the most raised part 

 in the macula lutea, where the retina is thickest, and the centre of the 

 fovea the most depressed part in the macula, where the retina is thinnest. 



3. At the centre of the fovea, proceeding from the outer to the inner 

 surface of the retina, we meet with the following structures in succession : — 

 the bacillary layer and the outer limiting membrane, a small quantity of 

 finely areolated connective tissue, the inner granule-layer and the ganglionic 

 layer very attenuated, a thin granular band containing optic nerve- fibres, 

 and the membrana limitans interna. 



