118 
LEWIS EVANS—ADDRESS. 
invention. About 30 years ago the clinical thermometer was 
gradually coming into use ; and during the last quarter of a century, 
thanks in a great measure to the teaching of Lord Lister and the 
study of bacteriology, antiseptic and aseptic treatment has wonder¬ 
fully modified medical practice. It now seems almost impossible 
to believe that our ancestors managed to live and die without ever 
having heard of microbes, bacilli, microzoa, etc., and that it is only 
during the last twenty years that such diseases as cholera, the plague, 
diphtheria, influenza, tuberculosis, typhoid, tetanus, erysipelas, 
pyaemia, etc., have been clearly traced to the presence of those 
minute vegetable organisms called bacteria, with the result that so 
many of them are already being successfully met by antitoxin 
treatment, a treatment which is, I believe, based on the old-time 
method of setting a thief to catch a thief. The most picturesque 
application of modern science to medicine has, no doubt, been the 
introduction since 1895 of the Eontgen Eays to surgery, by which 
very many valuable lives will be saved annually, especially in times 
of war. 
The time at my disposal will not admit of any review of the 
engineering triumphs of the century, nor of the progress made in 
hosts of other directions, as for instance in Natural History; but as 
the mechanical ingenuity of the age to which we are indebted for 
such labour-saving appliances as the sewing-machine, type-writer, 
and more recent piano-player, seems likely soon to do everything 
for us mechanically, and will probably accept payment on a-penny- 
in-the-slot basis, we will hope that those who come hereafter will 
have ample leisure in which to build up a fuller knowledge of 
science on the firm foundation that has been so laboriously prepared 
for them during the past hundred years. 
