1883.] 



President's Address. 



67 



to express a regret that the admirable energy of the Government, in 

 taking measures to make the recent advances of medical science 

 available during the late outbreak of cholera in that country, was 

 not extended beyond the purely practical side of the matter, or, 

 perhaps, not so far as the practical side in the proper sense ; for, until 

 we know something about the causes of that- terrible disease, our 

 measures for prevention and for cure will be alike leaps in the dark. 



Those who have looked into the literature of cholera may, perhaps, 

 be disposed to think that a new search after its cause will add but 

 another to the innumerable wild hypotheses which have been set 

 afloat on that topic ; and yet, devastating epidemics, like the pebrine 

 of the silkworm, so similar in their fatality and their apparently 

 capricious spread, that careful investigators have not hesitated to 

 institute a detailed comparison of the phenomena of this disease with 

 those of cholera, have been proved by Pasteur to be the work of 

 microscopic organisms ; and hardly less fatal epidemics, such as 

 splenic fever, have been traced to similar agencies. In both these 

 cases, knowledge of the causes and of the conditions which limit the 

 operation of the causes, have led to the invention of effectual methods 

 of cure. And it is assuredly, in the present state of science, some- 

 thing more than a permissible hypothesis, that the cause of cholera 

 may be an organic living materies morbi, and that the discovery of the 

 proper curative and prophylactic measures will follow upon the deter- 

 mination of the nature and conditions of existence of these organisms. 



If this reasoning is just, it is certainly to be regretted that the 

 opportunity of the outbreak of cholera in Egypt was not utilised for 

 the purposes of scientific investigation into the cause of the epidemic. 

 There are able, zealous, and courageous young pathologists in this 

 country who would have been willing enough to undertake the labour 

 and the risk; and it seems a pity that England should leave to 

 Germany and to France an enterprise which requires no less daring 

 than Arctic or African exploration ; but which, if successf al, would 

 be of a thousand times more value to mankind than the most 

 complete knowledge of the barren ice wastes of the pole or of the 

 sweltering barbarism of the equator. 



It may be said that inquiries into the causation of cholera have 

 been for some years conducted in India by the Government without 

 yielding any very definite result. But this is, perhaps, rather an 

 argument in favour of, than against, setting fresh minds to work 

 upon the problem. 



In December last year the President received from the Lords of 

 the Treasury a letter, addressed to their Lordships by the Lords of 

 the Committee of the Privy Council on Education, recommending to 

 the favourable consideration of the Treasury a memorial from the 

 Solar Physics Committee, suggesting the organisation of an expedition 



Fo 



