Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 1.djvu/37

 report at the following annual meeting, the progress of the distinct branches of medical science, during the year.

We shall not, then, find any lack of good employment for our time at the annual meeting.

The objects to which the attention of the members in general may be directed, are also of paramount importance.

Is there not a rich mine open to the labours of our members, in the department of essays, speculative and practical? There is scarcely a branch of physiological or pathological investigation, which may not be undertaken by means of essays.

In Physiology.—After all the laborious and minute researches of the anatomist, there are yet parts of the animal frame of which we know not the uses, scarcely the structure; and there are several functions of which the physiology is still very imperfect.

Of the blood, the chemical investigation has been minutely pursued. Has its physiological condition been investigated with equal care?

The actions of the heart have become the subject of much minute observation, ingenious speculation, and keen controversy. However the inquiry may terminate, the science of physic cannot fail to profit by the labour and intellect so meritoriously devoted to the research.

The respiratory process, and the changes induced by it, have been ably and zealously investigated; yet even here, there is room for more extended inquiry.

Of the brain and nervous system, the knowledge has been greatly advanced in modern times. The