458 



Anniversary Meeting. 



[Nov. 30, 



of the nature and relations of the so-called sympathetic nervous 

 system. By his researches, in which the several methods of gross 

 anatomical investigation, minute histological examination, and ex- 

 perimental inquiry were, in a striking manner, made to assist each 

 other, Dr. Gaskell, by tracing out the course and determining the 

 nature of vaso-constrictor and vaso-dilator fibres, and comparing 

 them with the cardiac augmentor and inhibitory fibres, and with the 

 fibres governing the visceral muscles, has already reduced to order 

 what previously was to a large extent confusion, and has opened up 

 what promises to be the way to a complete understanding of the 

 whole subject. 



The results arrived at, besides their great physiological importance, 

 on the one hand promise to be of great assistance in practical 

 medicine, and on the other are eminently suggestive from a purely 

 morphological point of view. 



The other Royal Medal has been awarded to Professor Thomas 

 Edward Thorpe for his researches on fluorine compounds, and his 

 determination of the atomic weights of titanium and gold. 



Professor Thomas Edward Thorpe's experimental work has secured 

 for him a place in the first rank of living experimentalists. 



His researches, which are not confined to one department of chemi- 

 cal science, but extend over many branches, are all distinguished, 

 both by accuracy and originality of treatment. As examples of 

 the high character of his investigations those of the determinations 

 of the atomic weights of titanium and gold may be specially cited 

 as permanently settling the value of two most important chemical 

 constants ; whilst his researches on the fluorine compounds, in- 

 cluding the discovery of thiophosphoryl fluoride, a body capable of 

 existing undecomposed in the state of gas, and his latest work on the 

 Yapour-density of Hydrofluoric Acid, do not fall short of the highest 

 examples of classical chemical investigation. 



The Davy Medal has been awarded to Dr. W. H. Perkin for his 

 researches on magnetic rotation in relation to chemical constitution. 



Dr. Perkin is well known as the originator of what is now a great 

 industry, that of the coal-tar colours, by his preparation and applica- 

 tion to tinctorial purposes of a colouring matter which had pre- 

 viously merely been noticed as affording a chemical test for the 

 presence of aniline. This, however, is now a long time ago, and it is 

 for more recent work, the interest of which is purely scientific, that 

 the medal has been awarded to him. 



Dr. Perkin first showed, in 1884, that a definite relationship exists 

 between the chemical constitution of substances and their power of 

 rotating the plane of polarisation of light when under magnetic 

 influence ; and he pointed out how the " molecular coefficient of 

 magnetic rotation" or " molecular rotatory power " might be deduced. 



