1889.J 



President's Address. 



457 



plete which did not specially mention his invaluable text-books on 

 conic sections, higher plane curves, solid geometry, and the modern 

 algebra — works which not only give a comprehensive view of the 

 subjects to which they relate, but contain a great deal of original 

 matter. 



Of the Royal Medals, it is the usual though not invariable practice 

 to award one for mathematics or physics, including chemistry, and 

 one for some one or more of the biological sciences. No distinction 

 is, however, made between the two medals in point of order of 

 precedence, and I will, therefore, take the names of the medallists in 

 alphabetical order. 



The Council have awarded o,ne of the Royal Medals this year to 

 Dr. Walter Holbrook Gaskell for his researches in cardiac physiology, 

 and his important discoveries in the anatomy and physiology of the 

 sympathetic nervous system. 



In his memoir, " On the Rhythm of the Heart of the Frog " 

 (Croonian Lecture, ' Phil. Trans.,' 1882), and in a subsequent memoir, 

 "On the Innervation of the Heart of the Tortoise" (' Journ. of Physiol.,' 

 vol. 4), Dr. Gaskell very largely advanced our knowledge of the 

 physiology of the heart-beat, more especially as relates to the sequence 

 of the beats of the several parts, the nature of the inhibitory action 

 of the vagus nerve, and the relations of tonicity and conducting 

 power to rhythmical contraction. These memoirs, however, lacked 

 completeness on account of their not taking into full consideration 

 the action of the cardiac augmentor or accelerator fibres, the existence 

 of which had been previously indicated in the case of mammals, and 

 suspected in the case of the frog and allied animals. 



By a striking experiment (' Journ. of Physiol.,' vol. 5) Dr. Gaskell 

 subsequently gave the first clear demonstration of the presence in the 

 frog of cardiac augmentor fibres ; also he gave a clear account of the 

 nature of the action of these fibres, and the relations of that action 

 to the action of the vagus fibres. Revising his previous work by 

 the help of the light thus gained, Dr. Gaskell was enabled to give 

 the first really consistent and satisfactory account of the nature 

 of the heart-beat, of the modifications of beat due to extrinsic 

 nerves, and of the parts played by muscular and nervous elements 

 respectively. 



Important as was this work on the heart, Dr. GaskelPs subsequent 

 work " On the Structure, Functions, and Distribution of the Nerves 

 which govern the Vascular and Visceral Systems" ('Journ. of Physiol.,' 

 vol. 7) has a far higher importance and significance. In spite of the 

 knowledge which during the past thirty or forty years has been 

 gained concerning va so-motor nerves and the nerves governing the 

 movements of the viscera, physiologists had up to the time of the 

 appearance of Dr. GaskelPs memoir failed to obtain a clear conception 



