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and emotional interest. I appreciated the value of workingwith him, and of his friendship, at the time, but it is only withlater experience that I have fully realised the need for JohnEason’s kind of vigilance in the treatment of patients."

In 1909 Dr. Eason married Christina Wallace. She diedin 1950. The surviving child of the marriage is a daughter.

WILLIAM ERNEST KINGM.D. Melb., F.R.C.P., F.R.A.C.P.

Dr. W. E. King, physician to the Royal MelbourneHospital, died on Nov. 3 at the age of 51.He graduated with honours at the University of Melbourne in

1937, and became a member of the house staff at the RoyalMelbourne Hospital. On the outbreak of the late war, heenlisted in the Australian Imperial Force and he was mentionedin despatches for his outstanding medical services in NewGuinea. In 1946 he became a foundation member of theclinical research unit of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute andthe Royal Melbourne Hospital. He introduced liver biopsy toAustralia and made a lifelong study of gastroenterology. WithDr. Joske he described cases of chronic liver disease with apositive lupus-erythematosus-cell test. In 1947 he came toLondon as the first Australian Nuffield fellow in medicine.He worked with Dr. Avery Jones at the Central MiddlesexHospital in the study of haematemesis, and they demonstratedthe value of early gastroscopy in detecting an acute bleedinggastric’ulcer. Dr. King’s association with Dr. Avery Jones hasled many Australians to come to London to serve their

apprenticeship in gastroenterology.After his return to Australia Dr. King was appointed

physician to the Royal Melbourne Hospital. He was electedF.R.A.C.P. in 1952 and F.R.C.P. in 1961. He served theAustralasian College as a censor. He played a leading part inthe creation of the Australian Society of Gastroenterology andlater was elected president.A colleague writes:" Bill King was renowned for his powers of leadership and

for his skill as a lecturer, clinical teacher, and investigator. Hisability in diagnosis was remarkable and covered a wide field ofmedicine. He was a familiar sight at the hospital, slowly wend-ing his way around the wards and down to the pathologydepartment, followed by an admiring collection of housemen,students, and graduates from Australia and distant lands.During the last year of his life, Dr. King may have suspectedthat his life was drawing to a close, but he chose to continue toserve his fellow men to the full."

Dr. King leaves a widow, who is also a doctor, and twosons one of whom is a medical student.

FREDERICK AMASA COLLERM.D. Harvard, F.A.C.S., Hon. F.R.C.S.

Dr. Frederick A. Coller, professor of surgery in theUniversity of Michigan and a past president of the Ameri-can College of Surgeons, died at his home at Ann Arboron Nov. 5. Many English surgeons will remember

gratefully the hospitality which he showed them both inhis department and in his own home.He qualified from Harvard University in 1912, and then

became an intern at the Massachusetts General Hospital.During the 1914-18 war he came to Europe as a member ofthe Harvard medical unit, which was led by Harvey Cushingand included Robert Osgood, Philip Wilson, Lyman G. Barton,George Benet, Elliott Cutler, Orville Rogers, and M. N. Smith-Petersen. Soon after Coller’s return to the United States, hewas appointed head of one of the surgical services at the Uni-versity of Michigan under the late Hugh Cabot. Cabot’sfriendship with Holburt Waring had led to a close, if informal,association between Barts and Michigan University Hospital,where many young English surgeons were welcomed for post-graduate study. After Coller succeeded Cabot in 1930 as direc-tor of surgery, he continued this tradition. Dr. Coller’s own

work was particularly concerned with abdominal and thyroidsurgery, and, with Walter Maddock (a Canadian working inAnn Arbor), he was, a pioneer in the study of fluid balance.He was elected a fellow of the English college in 1955.

Diary of the WeekNOV. 15 To 21

Monday, 16thPOSTGRADUATE MEDICAL SCHOOL OF LONDON, Ducane Road, W.12

4 P.M. Dr. J. E. Lennard-Jones: Medical Treatment of Ulcerative Colitis.ROYAL FREE HOSPITAL, Gray’s Inn Road, W.C.1

5 P.M. Prof. C. P. Beattie: The Riddle of Toxoplasmosis.HUNTERIAN SOCIETY

8.30 P.M. (Apothecaries’ Hall, Black Friars Lane, E.C.4.) Dr. D. A.Pyke and Mr. R. S. Murley (for the motion), Mr. George Bakerand Mr. G. T. Jones (against the motion): That Family Planningis Essential for the Future of the Human Race.

GLASGOW POSTGRADUATE MEDICAL BOARD11 P.M. Scottish Television and Grampian Television. Deafness in Child-

hood.

Tuesday, 17thRESEARCH DEFENCE SOCIETY

6 P.M. (University College, Gower Street, W.C.I.) Prof. AlexanderHaddow: Contribution of Animal Experiment to our Knowledgeof the Causation and Therapy of Malignant Disease. (StephenPaget lecture.)

ST. MARY’S HOSPITAL MEDICAL SCHOOL, W.25 P.M. Prof. W. J. Hamilton: Aspects of Placental Structure.

WEST END HOSPITAL FOR NEUROLOGY AND NEUROSURGERY, 91, Dean Street,W.1

5.30 P.M. Dr. Douglas Gordon: Ultrasound in Neurosurgery.A4EDICO-CHIRURGICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH

8.30 P.M. (Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, 18, Nicolson Street.)Sir Derrick Dunlop, Dr. R. R. Hamilton, Dr. T. B. Binns: Drugsand the Doctor.

Wednesday, 18thPOSTGRADUATE MEDICAL SCHOOL OF LONDON

2 P.M. Prof. D. N. Baron: Isoenzymes.SOCIETY OF APOTHECARIES OF LONDON, Black Friars Lane, E.C.4

5.30 P.M. Faculty of the History of Medicine and Pharmacy. Dr. R. R.Trail: Sydenham’s Influence on English Medicine. (Sydenhamlecture.)

INSTITUTE OF DISEASES OF THE CHEST, Brompton, S.W.35 P.M. Mr. Vernon Thompson: Tumours of the Lung, other than

Carcinoma.HARVEIAN SOCIETY OF LONDON

7.30 P.M. (11, Chandos Street, W.I.) Prof. H. E. de Wardener, Dr. C. H.Hodson, Mr. D. R. Davies: Pyelonephritis.

Thursday, 19thROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF LONDON, 11, St. Andrew’s Place, N.W.1

1.45 P.M. Dr. F. H. C. Crick: The Genetic Code. (Charles West lecture.)ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, W.C.2

5 P.M. Mr. W. S. Lund: The Cricopharyngeal Sphincter. (Arris andGale lecture.)

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON5 P.M. (St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School.) Dr. Alfred P. Fishman

(New York): Syndrome of Alveolar Hypoventilation.BRITISH POSTGRADUATE MEDICAL FEDERATION

5.30 P.M. (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, KeppelStreet, W.C.1.) Dame Honor Fell: Organ Culture in MedicalResearch.

BRITISH INSTITUTE OF RADIOLOGY, 32, Welbeck Street, W.16 P.M. Discussion on the Bony Pelvis and its Contents.8 P.M. Dr. G. M. Ardran, Dr. P. Pychlau, Dr. H. Miller, Mr. J. C.

Mathews, Dr. G. Spiegler, Mr. B. E. Keane: Patient Dose inRadiodiagnosis.

NUFFIELD ORTHOPEDIC CENTRE, WINGFIELD-MORRIS ORTHOPEDIC Hos-PITAL, Oxford

8.30 P.M. Prof. G. W. Harris: Influence of the Brain on Pituitary Func-tions, including Growth.

UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS5 P.M. (Queen’s College, Dundee.) Mr. John Kirk: Modern Trends in

Plastic Surgery.UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN

4.30 P.M. (Medical Buildings, Foresterhill.) Prof. D. J. Finney: StatisticalDevelopments in Medical Research.

Friday, 20thFACULTY OF RADIOLOGISTS

4.30 P.M. (Royal College of Surgeons of England.) Prof. H. N. Green:Immunology and Cancer. (Skinner lecture.)

POSTGRADUATE MEDICAL SCHOOL OF LONDON10 A.M. Mr. J. M. Megaw: Urinary Diversion and its Problems.4 P.M. Prof. H. G. Miller: Research in Multiple Sclerosis.5 P.M. Dr. K. T. Fowler (Sydney): Physical Mechanisms Underlying the

Distribution of Pulmonary Blood Flow.ROYAL MEDICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

2.15 P.M. (1, Wimpole Street, W.1.) Prof. E. Stengel: Pain and thePsychiatrist. (Maudsley lecture.)

MIDLAND CENTRE FOR NEUROSURGERY AND NEUROLOGY, Holly Lane,Smethwick, 41

8 P.M. Dr. John Walton: Modern Concept of Muscle Disease.

Saturday, 21stCOLLEGE OF GENERAL PRACTITIONERS

11.30 A.M. (B.M.A. House, Tavistock Square, W.C.1.) Prof. RichardScott: Medicine in Society. (James Mackenzie lecture.)

SOCIETY FOR DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY10 A.M. (National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, N.W.7.)

Dr. J. B. Solomon, Mr. D. James: Ontogeny of the ImmuneResponse. Dr. J. A. Tata, Dr. N. A. Mitchison: Hormones,Antigens, and Induction.

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Notes and News

ART AMONG THE ANATOMISTS

Two exhibitions currently on view in south-west Londonare evidence of the deep affinities between medicine and thevisual arts. A collection of Netherlandiana at the Victoria andAlbert Museum (somewhat coyly entitled The Orange and theRose) has Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson as its centrepiece.(It needs Rembrandt to put Kneller’s magnificent portrait ofNewton into the shade.) Further west, at Leighton House, theMedical Art Society is showing 96 works by its members.Conscientious aesthetes might find the coupling outrageous.In fact, neither exhibition damages the other. After the bat-

tering by a thousand reproductions, Rembrandt’s picturesprings gloriously and disturbingly alive : a breathless moment,and one almost apologises for the intrusion. At the centre ofthe canvas is a half-dissected human forearm; and its anatomyis as supremely professional as its brushwork. At LeightonHouse a similar streak of professionalism runs through thepaintings of the anatomists. This is not simply a matter oftechnical skill. Amateurs, whether they pursue their hobbyfull-time or part-time, for pleasure or for profit, have a com-mon urge to snatch at subjects which possess (or seem to pos-sess) an immediate visual appeal. They are thieving magpiesat heart; and their work en rnasse is always insipid. Profes-sional artists are creative, aggressive, and experimental andwhat they paint is often intrinsically unpictorial.For example, a string quartet may represent the most beguiling

combination of instrumental sound; but visually the horizontalhuddle of four figures, strenuously communing with each other, theoutside world, and their cumbersome musical tools is an unredeemedordeal. Unredeemed, that is, but for the artist’s eye. Eschewingevery pop-art and record-sleeve gimmick, Frank Forty transformsthe group into a glowing experience. Pastels are a treacherous med-ium ; and occasional artists might well be daunted by memories ofDegas’ supple lines and sharp tongue. But this String Quartet couldstand comparison with the Frenchman’s dancing girls and washer-women.

Good landscapes tend to be inspired by a sense of strangeness or bydeep familiarity. Frank Forty’s superb gouache Setubal-Portugalbelongs to the first category: G. M. Archer’s Suffolk Meadows to thesecond. This is an unostentatious work in the East Anglian tradition- cool and atmospheric, yet with an earthiness that is more satisfying(and more difficult to achieve) than the prismatic vapours of the air-mist-and-water school. H. Elliot Blake’s Italian pictures are pleas-ant, evocative, and technically accomplished, though in the Old

Belfrey Lake Garda he comes perilously near to crashing through thepicture-post-card barrier. W. G. Scott-Brown has painted the Testin varying lights and seasons: like his pictures in earlier exhibitions,these are subtle and beautifully finished works of pure impressionism.Technically less assured than any of these, three seascapes by CharlesWells have a concentrated, searching vision that is lacking elsewhere.All three are immensely exciting, though none is entirely successful.

Is a lunar landscape still an abstract ? Margaret Little sees it as

splendidly dramatic fireworks. (And, as if to prove that abstractartists can do more than play tennis with the net down, her FlowerPiece is a conventional triumph over what is conventionally the mostintractable of subjects.) Even further off the beaten track, repre-sented this year by strikingly rugged composition, the art of BryanBrooke remains impossible to place, to classify, or even to describe.The source of his inspiration is a fantastic world of great intellectualcomplexity and visual splendour, a world which communicates withour own along a special wave-length. In the past one has had doubtswhether it does always communicate, and one still lacks certainty.But looking at The Brett Hadleigh one feels that, even though thereare still atmospheric noises, the loose contacts are now at the receiving,and not the transmitting, end. The difficulty with surrealist artis that the conscious exploitation of the unconscious is self-destroying:the best surrealists, from Bosch and Greco to the young Chirico, neverrealised that they were above or beside reality. They were impelledby an emotional urge, alike in strength though unlike in kind; andtheir incessant strivings, not their goals, have been their abidingartistic gift. Bryan Brooke is too intellectual an artist to fit neatlyinto this group; and at times he is still too tethered by mundanevisual images. Like Blake, with whom he has few stylistic but per-haps close spiritual affinity, he tends to stumble when he draws onactual and simple objects. But, also like Blake, even in his lapses heretains an extraordinary power to arrest, hold, and fire the imagina-tion.

ROYAL MEDICAL BENEVOLENT FUND

LAST year E57,000 was disbursed by the Royal MedicalBenevolent Fund.l This amount is nearly equalled by currentsubscriptions, donations, and legacies-quite apart fromanother E27,500 from investments-while it is covered a

dozen times by the total assets. In addition the Ladies.’ Guilddistributed more than E26,000 from their own separate fund.Mr. R. M. Handheld-Jones has written a History of the RoyalMedical Benevolent Fund to round off nearly forty years on itscommittee of management and to mark his retirement from the

chairmanship.

A CHEST ASPIRATION STAND

Dr. N. Conway (University College Hospital, London,W. C. 1) writes:The customary position for chest aspiration is uncomfortable for

the patient. He is usually obliged to lean forward in bed with hishead and armspillowed on a

bed-table whichallows him to

bend his knees

only a little way.After a shorttime he mayneed help to

stay upright. Ifhis condition

permits, it is, ofcourse, muchless tiring forhim to sit out ofbed on a chairor stool, pro-vided that hishead and armscan be firmlysupported. Onesolution is to usethe edge of thebed itself, but frequently its height or construction prevents thepatient’s knees from fitting comfortably underneath.To meet this need, therefore, a simple wooden stand has been

made, with an adjustable height of from 30 to 45 in. (see figure).With this support, patients can sit for long periods without fatigue.

University of BirminghamDr. Harry Smith, at present deputy chief scientific officer

and head of chemical pathology at the Microbiological ResearchEstablishment, Porton, has been appointed to the chair of

microbiology in succession to Prof. D. G. Catchside.Dr. Smith graduated B.sc. from the University of London in 1942,

and after three years with Boots Pure Drug Company he becameassistant lecturer in the department of chemistry at UniversityCollege, Nottingham. In 1947 he moved to Porton. His specialresearch interest has been the chemistry of microbial virulence. Heholds the degrees of B.PHARM. and D.sc.

Dr. J. L. Jinks, at present honorary reader in genetics, hasbeen appointed to the chair of genetics from Oct. 1 in successionto Prof. K. Mather.

Dr. Jinks graduated B.sc. in botany from the University of

Birmingham in 1950 and was awarded a research studentship ingenetics by the Agricultural Research Council, which he held in thedepartment of genetics in the university, obtaining his PH.D. in 1952.He was then appointed to the staff of the Agricultural ResearchCouncil’s Unit of Biometrical Genetics, attached to the departmentof genetics, and still holds this appointment. He has studiedinheritance in moulds, bacteria, and viruses, and he has also investi-gated the inheritance of characters, such as yield in domestic

plants and animals, which vary by imperceptible gradations over awide range of expressions.

University of GlasgowOn Nov. 7 the degree ofM.D. was conferred on J. A. Simpson

and of PH.D. on J. N. Norman and W. C. Watson.1. Annual report, 1963. The address of the Fund is 37, St. George’s Road,

Wimbledon, London, S.W.19.