xlviii. 



Annual Report of the Council. 



" Organic Chemistry, given a high value to our meetings 

 "and conferred lustre on our Society, which will ever 

 " connect his name with those of Dalton and Joule." 



Emil du Bois-Reymond, though he was born and died 

 at Berlin, and will always rank as a German physiologist, 

 was, as his name indicates, of Celtic origin. His father was 

 a native of Neufchatel, and his mother was of Huguenot 

 stock ; as he himself has said, he " was of pure Celtic 

 blood.' 1 Born on November 7, 18 18, at Berlin, where his 

 father was then residing, he studied for some time at the 

 French College there, but subsequently at Neufchatel. At 

 18 years of age he entered at the University of Berlin, 

 and after studying science and medicine there and at Bonn, 

 took his doctor's degree in medicine at the former place. 

 His father, though of slender means, seems to have assisted 

 him to devote himself to science rather than to practical 

 life, and in 1840 he became assistant to Johannes Miiller, 

 then Professor at the University of Berlin. Miiller, great 

 both as a physiologist and as an anatomist, had, as Pro- 

 fessor, charge both of physiology and anatomy ; but as 

 assistant, Du Bois-Reymond seems to have been specially 

 intrusted with physiology. In his graduation thesis he had 

 dealt with " electric fishes," and he early devoted himself 

 to what proved to be his life's work, the investigation of 

 the electrical phenomena presented by living beings. Some 

 of his results he communicated to scientific periodicals, but 

 the main exposition of his inquiries, and of the views to 

 which these led him, are to be found in his Researches in 

 Animal Electricity (Untersuchungen iiber thierische Elec- 

 tricitat), the 1st and part of the 2nd volume of which 

 appeared in 184.8-9, which was continued in i860, but was 

 not concluded until 1884. 



Upon the death of Johannes Miiller in 1858, the chair 

 held by him of Anatomy and Physiology was divided into 

 a chair of Anatomy with Comparative Anatomy and a 

 chair of Physiology. The former was given to Reichert ; 



