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Anniversary Address by Sir A. Geikie. [Nov. 30. 



his death-bed. He had been in failing health for some time, but the latest 

 news was more favourable. The end came, however, before he could learn 

 that a Eoyal Medal had been assigned to him. In these circumstances it 

 was felt that the award should not be cancelled, but that the Medal should 

 be transmitted to his family as a visible token of the admiration with which 

 the Eoyal Society regards his life-work. On appealing for the sanction of 

 the Eoyal donor of the Medal, His Majesty was pleased to approve of our 

 proposal, and to add an expression of his condolence: "The King trusts 

 that you will be so good as to convey to the family the assurance of His 

 Majesty's sincere sympathy in the terrible loss that they have sustained, 

 through which so distinguished a career has been brought to a close." Those 

 who had personal acquaintance with Prof. Chrystal mourn the extinction of 

 a life full of charm and brightness. 



The Eoyal Medal on the biological side has been awarded to William 

 Maddock Bayliss, F.E.S. During the last twenty-five years, the part taken 

 by Dr. Bayliss in the advancement of physiology has, perhaps, been 

 unequalled by any other physiologist in this country. His work has 

 ranged over a wide field. In his earlier papers dealing with the electrical 

 phenomena associated with the excitatory state in glands and contractile 

 tissues, he brought forward results which were, at the time, entirely novel, 

 and have formed the basis of all subsequent investigations. His paper with 

 Starling on the electrical phenomena of the mammalian heart was the 

 first to give the correct form of the normal variation, as confirmed by 

 later investigations with the string galvanometer. 



Another subject which has engaged his attention at intervals during the 

 whole of his career has been the question of the innervation of the blood 

 vessels. In conjunction with other workers, he took a prominent part in 

 mapping out the course of the vaso-constrictor fibres through the sympathetic 

 system. More important is his work on vaso-dilator nerves and the part 

 played by them in vascular reflexes. His confirmation of the earlier 

 observations of Strieker, and his proof that the vaso-dilator impulses are 

 carried as " antidromic " impulses in the fibres ordinarily subserving 

 sensation, effected a revolution in our conceptions of nerve conduction, and 

 showed that the law of Bell and Majendie, previously accepted as of 

 universal application, did not express the whole truth, and that, in fact, 

 a nerve fibre is normally the seat of processes which are both centripetal and 

 centrifugal. 



A third group of researches is represented by those on the innervation, 

 intrinsic and extrinsic, of the intestines. Up to the appearance of the 

 paper, written by him in conjunction with Starling, on the movements of 



