1883.] 



President's Address. 



63 



ingenious inventor ; in Lord Talbot de Malahide, a warm friend of 

 science and a zealous promoter of archa3ological research; in Mr. 

 Walker, an eminent engineer; in John Elliot Howard, a distin- 

 guished quinologist; and, in the Rev. Dr. Stebbing, an accomplished 

 •and amiable man of letters, who for very many years filled the 

 honourable, but not very onerous, office, of Chaplain to the Society. 



And it would ill become us, intimately connected as this Society 

 always has been, and I hope always will be, with the sciences upon 

 which medicine bases itself, to leave unnoticed the decease of the 

 very type of a philosophical physician, the venerable Sir Thomas 

 "Watson. 



Two well-known names have disappeared from among those of the 

 eminent men who are enrolled upon our foreign list ; the eminent 

 physicist Plateau, and the no less distinguished anatomist and 

 embryologist Bischoff. 



I now beg leave to bring under your notice a brief general review 

 of the work of the Society during the past year. 



The papers printed in the " Transactions " for 1882 and 1883 will 

 occupy two volumes, of which three parts, containing 1038 4to. pages 

 and 52 plates, have already been published. Two parts more, to 

 -complete 1883, will shortly be published. 



The "Proceedings," which steadily increase in size from year to 

 year, amount during the past year to 780 8vo. pages, with four plates 

 -and numerous engravings. 



ITou are aware that nothing is printed in the " Proceedings " or in 

 the "Transactions" except by the authority of the Council, which, 

 in the latter case, calls in the assistance of at least two carefully- 

 selected and independent referees, by whose advice it is in practice, 

 though not necessarily, guided. I am inclined to think that Fellows 

 of this Society who do not happen to have served on the Council, are 

 little aware of the amount, or of the value, of the conscientious labour 

 which is thus performed for the Society by gentlemen whose names 

 do not appear in our records. And I trust I may be forgiven for 

 stepping beyond precedent so far as to offer our thanks for work, 

 which is always troublesome and often ungrateful ; but, without which, 

 the contributions to our pages would not maintain the high average 

 •of excellence which they possess. 



Among the points of importance, by reason of their novelty or 

 general significance, which have been laid before us, much interest 

 attaches to the result brought out in Professor Osborne Reynolds' 

 " Experimental Investigation of the circumstances which determine 

 whether the motion of water shall be direct or sinuous, and of the law 

 of resistance in parallel channels "; which shows that when the con- 

 ditions of dynamical similarity are satisfied, two systems, involving 



