The National Radium Commission in retrospect.

Abstract

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: This is the formal occasion when we meet corporately to recall the life and work of a man whom we delight to honour. Let us, then, first make an act of recollection of Silvanus Thompson as he was in his age and generation; secondly, review the circumstances in which we live and move and have our being; and finally, attempt to relate his philosophy of life to the conditions of to-day (so far as they can be so extrapolated), to get such inspiration, guidance, and perhaps even comfort, as we can for the daily round and common task of 1949. We are met primarily to commemorate the first President of the Rontgen Society—one of the parent bodies of the British Institute of Radiology; and the ardour and zest of our participation is not diminished by the fact that this is the 28th occasion on which this Institute has gathered to perform this ceremony. The procedure to-day follows the customary ritual into which variety is introduced by the selection each year of a different ind...