with the full number (30) of members. Professor Macalister came under Rule XXI.; his excuse was accepted. The treasurer's report showing a deficiency of £3 1s., the annual subscription was, with one dissentient voice, raised to £1. An attempt to increase the stringency of Rule XXI., by changing 3 to 5 or 6, failed, and it remained as before, till recently when it has been raised to 5. It was proposed to raise the number of members from 30 to 40; a compromise of 33 was arrived at. This number was fixed on as corresponding to the number of evening meetings, so that each member might have a night for his stated annual com munication. At the annual meeting of the fourteenth session (1883–84), Professor Haughton, Professor Macalister, and H. Fitzgibbon were sentenced under Rule XXI. The club, appalled at the prospect of such a hecatomb, accepted explanations. The increased annual subscription having produced a balance in favour of the club, suggestions were made to return to the former 10s. subscription and negatived. The council, inthe largeness of their heart, at the close of the session voted a sum of £10 towards the Bohernabreena dinner. This was providential, as in the next session (1884-85) the surplus (small) was lost in the Munster Bank. There were no deaths in the club during the T. C. D. period. There were three in the Brunswick-street period-Bookey, Rainsford, and Peele, In the Kildare-street period four occurred. That of R. J. Harvey took place, as before mentioned, immediately after the change from Brunswick-street, and left a hiatus valde deflendus. For nearly ten years there were none, of existing members of the club, till three came in succession, like thunder claps, each most unexpected; and by these deaths the Biological constellation lost three of its stars of the first magnitude. Robert M'Donnell died suddenly, on 6th May, 1889. The meeting of the club, held on the following day, was adjourned in consequence, and a wreath of flowers was ordered to be sent on the part the members to be laid on his coffin. He had been over seventeen years in the club. He had just completed his 61st year. He had returned from a holiday on the continent a few days before his death, and said be! had not felt so well for a long time. On Sunday evening he dined with, his venerable father (then aged 91), on his return home he wrote letters for some time and went to bed-at one o'clock, a.m., he was dead. His next door neighbour, Dr. Cruise, had been immediately sent for, but only to find his dear friend was past his aid. On 1st December, 1890, A. H.. Corley died in his 50th year. He, like R. M'Donnell, had been over seventeen years a member of the club. About twelve months after, on the night of 9th November, 1891, Thomas E. Little died in his house, 42 Great Brunswick-street, unexpectedly, like both those who had preceded him. Though, probably, each of them was personally aware th he had not long to live, few outsiders were aware of the secret, which is one which medical men, because they know it so well, try to conceal, if they can, even from themselves, until the dumbness and greyness of dissolution reveal it to all. Tom Little showed his interest in the Biological Club by the regularity with which he attended its meetings. For many years he headed the list of members with the greatest number of attendances. He was not an incessant contributor, but every subject be brought forward—no matter how dry or commonplace-he immediately invested with an interest unsuspected of being resident in it; he discussed it in an original way, showed it in new lights, and made unforeseen points about it; consequently whenever he spoke he was listened to with profound attention. He was an accomplished man in many ways; a Scholar of the House, as well as the holder of a medical scholarship (1863). He was a great lover of chess, delighting in "the bloodless war that breeds good will." I have seen him, more than a dozen times, sitting down after 10 p.m. in the University Club to solve the chess problems in the Dublin Evening Mail for relaxation. He had that combination of chivalry and love of analysis without which no one can enjoy chess. He was a good musician, and had a sweet, flexible voice. His singing at some of the earlier Bohernabreena dinners will be long remembered by those who heard it. There were some who said of Tom Little "plus aloës quam mellis habet," but while his sweetness was never so intense as to be unwholesome, there was nothing corrosive in his tartness. He was a very general favourite, and his large funeral was attended by many who wore more crape upon their hearts than on their hats. He was one of the original members; in fact he belonged to the club in its embryonic condition, before it had an independent habitation Dr. Duffey, Professor Purser, and Mr. Swanzy will recollect the period I allude to, when the primordial germ of the present club met at my house in 21 Lower Pembroke-street, on Thursday evenings, for more than a year before its establishment in T. C. D. Tom Little was one of those who most strongly urged a change of meeting place on the grounds that it was inconvenient to bring specimens, &c., into sittingrooms, and also that so much smoking and the noise of animated debates are not quite suited for a dwellinghouse. Tom Little never held the post of either Secretary or Treasurer, but was almost a standing member of the Council, was for twenty years on the Committee of Reference, and was as often as possible voted into the chair at the weekly meetings. A review of the ten years during which the club has been in Kildare#treet discloses a marked expansion in two directions-(a) in the variety of refreshments provided; (b) in the exhibition of living specimens. The riginal light ale is replaced now by beer in variety (Lager, Bass, &c.); mineral waters in variety; coffee, cigars, cigarettes, snuff, in addition to ut tobacco of the choicest description. The number of waiting-rooms on the College premises in Kildare-street facilitated the exhibition of or a name. living specimens by affording convenient cages for them. During the whole seven years of the Brunswick-street period the number of living specimens brought before the club was 14. In the first year alone of the Kildare-street period the number exceeded that of the previous seven years, for it was 15. Taking the first seven years of the Kildare-street period, 123 living specimens were shown-an average of over 17 each session. An analysis of these 123 shows the large preponderance of eye cases, three times as many as those of any other class—e.g., eye cases, 63; skin cases, 19; medical cases, 19; surgical, 20; dental, 3; laryngeal or throat, 3; pathological, 5; total, 123. Of the 14 patients brought down to the Brunswick-street room in seven years there were-eye cases, 3, ear, 1; pathological, 1; medical, 9. The patients brought to Kildare street in seven years were 8.7 times as numerous as those brought in similar period of time to Brunswick-street. None were ever brought to T.C.D. These facts show the marked progress the club has made in the direction of teaching by demonstration. There have also been several exhibitions of recent years with the lantern and limelight. The obstetric element is much more forward than it was in earlier years. The club, now in its twenty-first year, has lived down much vilification, and falsified many predictions. It was prophesied, over and over again,: that it would soon fall to pieces, that so many dissentient interests could not cohere long. Instead of that, it seems to have the secret of perpetual youth—not alas individually, for some at least must say of themselves, non sum qualis eram. The secret lies in the fact of its being constantly recruited from the ranks of rising merit, and annually renovated with an infusion of the best and freshest blood. The fatal Rule XXI. chops off the head of each according as he becomes wilfully careless, or hopelessly effete. It has been urged that it is a disadvantage thus to lop off the seniors, as age, infirmity, or occupation interfere with their regular attendance, and that payment of their subscription might be enough to expect from them, since they are not likely to occupy the room or consume the refreshments. But still this rule, though it often prunes away some acquiring weight and influence which might be at any time needful, is a mainspring in the vitality of the club of great importance. The Biological Club in its early years had to put up with many sneers and scoffs, not always on the part of the youngest members of the profession. It was said to be a mutual admiration society, which met to bandy compliments under a canopy of tobacco smoke. It was called a tabagie or tobacco parliament-a Tabaks-collegium; the German Band, by those who boasted of belonging to the Old School-a phrase generaliy meaning any school which seems never to have been young; the Beeriological Club, and other names suggestive of the ridicule which often is the truest homage ignorance can offer to superiority. Yet the club flourished and increased in repute and importance, so much so that it has long been no unusual matter for papers, &c., intended for various Sections of the Royal Academy of Medicine, to be presented here for a full-dress rehearsal-to be trotted out, as it were, before the club, that their action, stvle, and paces might be criticised—and they are often admitted to be The better of the touching up they get before they reach the ears of the Royal Academicians, for free and friendly discussion is the essential characteristic of the Biological Club. It will be generally admitted that fear of open discussion implies feebleness of inward conviction, and that great sensitiveness to the expression of individual opinion is a mark of weakness. Truth is tough-it does not break like a bubble at a touch; kick it up and down and from side to side all day, and like a good footLall, it will be round and full at night. Though we have had several et-going members, who seemed to hold that the only condition of peace the present world is to have no ideas at all, or at least not to express them but in reference to the most elementary propositions, yet on many casions our discussions, when the steel and flint of trained intellects Cane into friendly collision, have proved a real spading-up of the ground for crops of thought. The prediction of the speedy resolution of the Biological Club into its primary constituents has not been verified. It forms, on the contrary, an algamation in which religious, political, or social distinction is unknown and unheard-of. Seniors and juniors meet together in its room, though hey may be far enough apart outside. Those who are firmly seated in the saddle of professional success, exchange ideas with those who are but vinning their spurs. Every college, hospital, and school in Dublin is represented in it; President of Royal College and Private Teacher, Demonstrator and Professor, meet here on equal terms. The only qualication for welcome admission is to be a bond file worker in some Lepartment of medicine, general or special. The result of the harmonious -operation of all-quisque in suâ arte-is the mutual benefit and instruclion of each of the members of the B.C., as it is familiarly called. I remember no instance, nor have I ever heard of any personal unpleasant arising out of a meeting of the Biological Club. It is a significant fact that, among its extensive body of rules there is not one dealing with the expulsion of a member. Had there ever been any need for such a ale, it could and would have been quickly made. There are three ways which a member can commit a Biological suicide, and get out of the lub in a rapid manner-by Rule 13, being in arrears of his subscription for over 12 months; by Rule 19, the third failure to make his stated munication forfeits membership; and by Rule 21, insufficient attendnce without valid excuse. This last rule is the saw which removes any caying branches before the canker can spread to the main stem. It now only remains for me to apologise for such a prolonged trespass in the attention of many to whom the details of the distant past may be |