Agassiz of Neufchatel, and M. von Martins of Munich, as those Fellows who were present at their election will remember.
I have to announce to you, Gentlemen, with great regret, the re- tirement of Captain Smyth from the office of Foreign Secretary, in consequence of his leaving his present residence for one at an in- convenient distance from London.
I shall not detain you by any observations of the finances of the Royal Society, as you will shortly hear the report of the Treasurer on that subject.
I have the honour. Gentlemen, to inform you that the Council have, by an unanimous decision, awarded the Royal Medals to Dr. Martin Barry and Mr. Ivory, and the Copley Medal for the year to Mr. Robert Brown; and I shall now beg leave to address myself to those three Gentlemen.
Dr. Barry—it gives me sincere pleasure to bestow this medal on a gentleman who has so well deserved it, by researches in a difficult and important portion of animal physiology[1]. Your merits have been appreciated by men much more capable of understanding the subject than I can pretend to be—by men selected by the Council of the Royal Society for their physiological science, who have felt the great value of the discoveries you have made by accurate and diligent research, aided by the skilful use of the microscope. I trust that the award of this medal will encourage you to persevere in the same course, and that future discoveries may add to your reputation and to that of the important profession to which you belong.
Mr. Ivory—it is not the first time that you have been addressed
- ↑ These researches are the subject of Dr. Martin Barry's papers "On Embryology," communicated to the Royal Society in 1838 and 1839.
In these memoirs the author has brought to light many new and interesting facts, and has repeated and confirmed previous observations regarding the nature, formation, and developement of the ovum in the vertebrata, and especially in the mammalia.
The importance of the subject and the difficulty of its investigation, render the establishment of facts previously known extremely acceptable to physiologists. But the novel matter contained in Dr. Barry's Memoirs forms a considerable proportion of them. Without entering into unnecessary detail, we may mention that the author has determined the order of formation of the different parts of the ovum, and the nature and mode of developement of the vesicle (ovisac), in which these processes take place. He has, in like manner, discovered the nature and traced the developement of the so-called disc of M. Baer, and has detected in it the mechanism which mainly regulates the transit of the ovum into the Fallopian tube. The second series of Dr. Barry's observations makes known the changes which the ovum undergoes in its passage through the Fallopian tube; the earliest and most interesting stages of developement being for the first time described in this memoir.
The value of his very laborious and extensive series of minute observations is greatly enhanced by the clearness and method with which the results are given, and by the comparisons, which the author's intimate acquaintance with this branch of physiological literature has enabled him to institute, between his own observations and those of his predecessors in the same branch of inquiry.
