610 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
believed that the fluids of the body are more frequently 
diseased than the solids, since the latter derive their origin 
from the former. 
“ The humoral pathology which has at all times obtained 
to a greater or less extent, has, from want of adequate means 
of illustration, given way in modern days to a system resting 
upon the more tangible evidence of morbid anatomy ; but it 
is remarkable that since chemical analysis and microscopical 
research have supplied those desiderata, and shown the real 
nature of many of the morbid changes of the blood, the con- 
viction is every day gaining ground, that it is to that fluid 
we are chiefly to look for the primary elements of disease, 
and to it we must address our remedies if we w r ould achieve 
either the prevention or the cure of those great constitutional 
maladies, which have hitherto resisted more narrow views 
and more partial treatment.” 
The truth, perhaps, lies between the two, as both the 
solids and fluids are alike liable to undergo change arising 
from the existence of disturbing causes in the organism. In 
like manner we perceive a reverting to the older views as it 
respects the nature of the electric fluid and of light. 
It would be alike easy for me to prove the necessity and to 
show the advantages of science. An illustration or two 
under this head must suffice. Had we been ignorant of the 
laws which govern that inscrutable power electricity, where 
would now have been its multiplied applications ? Although 
a slight interruption has recently taken place in the laying 
down of the Atlantic cable, yet, doubtless, we shall soon 
realise Ariel’s fiction of placing a girdle round the world; 
and by it w T e shall be enabled to hold almost daily communi- 
cation wdth our kinsmen at the antipodes. Some philosophers 
consider this mysterious agent to be the cause of all natural 
phenomena, both in the air above and in the earth beneath 
us. It rules alike the motions of the planets and of atoms, 
giving rise to gravitation and affinity. It broods in the air, 
rides on the mist, wanders through space, attracts in the 
Aurora, and terrifies in the thunder-storm ; it governs the 
growth of plants, and shapes all substances, from the fragile 
crystals of ice to the hardest of all known bodies, the 
diamond ; it likew ise determines the deposit of metallic veins ; 
it can lift a feather, or annihilate a world ! Some have even 
gone so far as to consider it the cause of organization and of 
life — a mere fallacy ! A mistaking of effects for the cause ; 
the abstract nature of which we know nothing, and perhaps 
always shall be ignorant of. In the time of Geber the 
chemical process was considered analogous to the vital pro- 
