The President’s Address. 
29 
soliclation rather than the extension of an already over- 
burdened nomenclature, none can fail to admire the beauty of 
the drawings which accompany his papers, or to wonder at 
the perseverance which, at threescore years and ten, enabled 
him to examine critically hundreds of slides to select those 
forms which had not previously been illustrated. 
Mr. Joseph Gratton belonged to a very valuable class of 
men— those who, being engaged in commerce, devote their 
money and leisure time to scientific pursuits. He took 
interest in microscopical investigations, and manifested a 
liberal disposition by freely showing, with other objects of 
interest, those which his foreign transactions enabled him to 
obtain abroad. 
Passing from subjects of painful association, it is gratifying 
to revert to the favorable position occupied by the Society, 
as the number of new Fellows added in the year, over the 
number lost by death and resignation, amount to no less than 
forty-five. 
I will now briefly advert to the subjects which have been 
brought under our notice since my last address. An inquiry 
into the whole microscopic work of the past year would far 
exceed the limit of this address ; and indeed my long illness, 
and consequent absence from the meetings of the Society 
during the last four months, places it beyond my power. I 
must therefore limit myself to a brief notice — to a few points 
only. 
At the first meeting of the Society in the year, viz., on 
March 14, a valuable paper was read by H. C. Bastian, M.A., 
“ On the so-called Pacchionian Bodies.” In this paper those 
bodies were shown to be in no way glandular in their com- 
position, as was formerly supposed, but to be composed of 
precisely the same elements as entered into the formation of 
the arachnoid, of the visceral layer of which, they were local 
hypertrophies, or circumscribed outgrowths. Their various 
forms were described, and the situations in which they were 
encountered in their different stages of growth were accounted 
for. It w T as maintained, in opposition to some other observers, 
that these growths invariably sprang from the visceral, and 
never from the so-called parietal layer of the arachnoid. The 
causes leading to their development were considered, and also 
the questions as to whether such growths were to be regarded 
as normal or pathological formations. And, lastly, it was 
shown that the Pacchionian bodies were not growths, abso- 
lutely peculiar in kind ; that they could be classed with 
similar growths occurring on other organs of the body ; and 
VOL. xv. d 
