SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATIONS,

Their Rise, Progress, and Influence,

WITH

A HISTORY OF THE HUNTERIAN SOCIETY.

AN ORATION

Delivered on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the above Institution, February 10, 1869,

BY

HENRY I. FOTHERBY, M.D. LOND., F.G.S.,

Vice-President of the Hunterian Society.

"Ratio Societatis Vinculum."

•BIBL

PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE COUNCIL.

LONDON:

BELL & DALDY, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.

1869.

E

ORATION.

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN,

As you are all aware, we this day celebrate, not only the Anniversary of the Hunterian Society, but the Jubilee of its existence. It seems meet, therefore, that we should devote to the Institution itself our especial consideration this evening; and I propose accordingly to give you some account of its foundation, history and progress to the present time; also making such general observations on these associations as the story suggests, and time will allow.

The narrative of the Society's history derives no interest from the halo of romance or antiquity; it claims no heathen divinity in the mist of ages, as the founder, no portents of Nature attended its birth; nor did an Oracle give it laws. No, the particulars form a plain, prosaic, nineteenth-century description, unadorned by any brilliant discovery, and uncoloured by any sensational episode. "Art is long," and fifty years is but a brief space of time; yet we have lived fast during this last half-century, and what