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128 1the 346 registration cities of the United States the death- rate of males was 20’ 0 and that of females 17 2 per 1000, the male-rate exceeding the female by one-sixth." Meeting of the American Assoaicction for the Advacement oj Science. The fifty-fourth Convocation of the American Association for the Advancement of Science met in Philadelphia on .Dec. 27th. All the sessions were held in the buildings of the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Carroll D. Wright .retired from the presidency of the association and was - succeeded by Professor W. G. Farlow of Harvard. The newly - elected vice-presidents are : Professor Alexander Ziwet, Uni- versity of Michigan ; Professor W. F. Magie, Princeton; ,Professor L. P. Kinnicutt, Worcester Polytechnic Institute ; Professor D. S. Jacobus, Stevens Institute; Professor ..Eugene A. Smith, University of Alabama ; Professor C. Hart .Merriam, Department of Agriculture, Washington ; Professor B. L. Robinson, Harvard; Dr. Walter Hough, National Museum, Washington; Professor M. A. Knapp, chairman .of the Inter-State Commerce Commission; and Professor H. P. Bowditch, Harvard. Among papers of interest read at the meeting was one by Dr. Spitzka of Columbia University on different types of the brain. Dr. Spitzka said that judging from the present indications of the formation of the brain in the members of an American family of the Aryan race, the conditions governing the population of the United States seem to have been peculiarly advantageous to the preservation and restoration of the best types, characterised by greater energy, motility, and culture. We may, therefore, thinks Dr. Spitzka, expect to find bigger and better brains in America eventually. Referring to the ,brains of criminals he ridiculed the idea that the criminal brain was of a decidedly different type from that of an - ordinary individual. Many criminals, he said, show not a single anomaly in their physical or mental conformation, while many persons with marked evidences of morphological aberration have never exhibited a criminal tendency. The retiring vice-president of the Chemical Section, Dr. Wilder ..-8. Bancroft, in his address made some remarks on the possibility of the transmutation of elements. He said that the fact that transmutation of the elements has never been observed does not prove that none has taken place. If Lockyer’s conclusions as to the state of things in the sun ,were accepted many of the elements could undoubtedly be broken up if they could be exposed long enough to 60000 Centigrade. . Jan. 4th. Obituary. WILLIAM TURNER, M-.R.C.S. ENG., L.S.A. THE recent death of Mr. William Turner of Poole, (Dorset, sadly illustrates some of the risks of medical practice. The deceased who was in his sixtieth year, while performing an operation at the Cornelia Hospital, .Poole, on Oct. 25th, pricked the first finger of his left hand with the needle which he was using. The finger was immediately washed with an antiseptic solution, ’but to no purpose, as a medical friend was asked to see him on Oct. 27th on account of the painful state of the finger and arm and the illness continued with various .,exacerbations and remissions until it terminated fatally on Nov. 25th. At an inquest which was held on Nov. 27th the verdict was to the effect that death was due to blood poisoning and much sympathy for the family was expressed by both the coroner and the jury. Mr. Turner’s professional education was received at Guy’s Hospital and in 1867 he became qualified as M.R.C.S. Eng. and L.S.A. Soon after- wards he settled in Poole and eventually acquired the practice of the late Mr. Lacey of that town. In 1886 he ,was appointed a borough magistrate. Among various local positions which he held may be mentioned that of medical officer and public vaccinator of the first district and the workhouse of the Poole union, medical officer of the industrial school, and honorary surgeon of the Cornelia Hospital. He also acted as deputy coroner a few years ago. Mr. Turner took a great interest in Freemasonry. He was a Past Master of the Amity Lodge No. 137 and bad held high office in the Provincial Grand Lodge of Dorsetshire. He was . also a prominent figure in yachting circles and in former years his yacht gained several prizes ; at the time of his death he was chairman of the sailing committee of the Yacht Club and was last year elected chairman of the regatta committee. For several years he was president of the Poole Natural History Club and was also associated with the Dorset Field Club. He has left a widow and a family consisting of five daughters and three sons. The funeral took place on Nov. 29th in Poole Cemetery. THOMAS MORLEY ROOKE, M.D. LOND. THE death occurred recently at Bournemouth of Dr. Thomas Morley Rooke. He had been much indisposed for some time and succumbed 24 hours after an operation which was undertaken in order if possible to save his life. Born at York in 1826 he entered as a student at Guy’s Hospital, where his remarkable diligence was speedily recognised, and at the University of London, where he graduated as M.B. in 1852, carrying off the " blue riband " of the medical examination world by gaining the gold medal in medicine and the University scholarship. He took the degree of M.D. a year later. Always a hard worker, without adequate holiday, he started practice in London, but indifferent health, followed by haemorrhage from the lungs, made it advisable for him to take a long sea voyage. After a year’s rest he returned quite well and proved himself by his subsequent long life a good example of permanent recovery from a tuberculous lesion. He then commenced practice at Scarborough but an unfor- tunate contretemps made him beat a hasty retreat from this place where there was then thriving a certain " Dr. Rooke," proprietor of much-advertised quack nostrums and editor of a pamphlet called the " Anti-Lancet." The con- fusion entailed by the presence of two " Dr. Rookes " caused Dr. Morley Rooke so much annoyance that he was glad to exchange for another sphere and he chose Cheltenham. All his life, however, "Dr. Rooke’s Anti-Lancet" " was a never- failing source of joking with him. He spent 37 years in practice at Cheltenham where he held the office of President of the Gloucestershire branch of the British Medical Associa- tion and was consulting physician to the Cobourg Dispensary for Diseases of Women and Children and physician to the Derbyshire General Infirmary. He always kept himself abreast of the times in medical and scientific matters but it was as the best type of family physician that his memory will long be revered in Cheltenham. Though with a constitu- tion never very robust his thoughts were always concentrated on his patients. Ten years ago the state of his health made him relinquish his practice and retire to Bournemouth, where he resided until his death. There he devoted his time and energy in relieving the sufferings of the poor and acted for a time as honorary secretary to the Charity Organisation Society. He was the type of the upright Christian man who delighted in doing good works not for his own soul’s sake but for the good and pleasure that it gave to others. As a medical man in Bournemouth writes : "In these latter days his profession can ill spare one whose bearing so well represented the best type of a courtly English gentleman." ALEXANDER LOCKHART GILLESPIE, M.D. EDIN., F.R.C.P. EDIN., F.R.S. EDIN. BY the death of Dr. Alexander Lockhart Gillespie Edin- burgh has lost one of its younger physicians and one of whom much might have been expected. He died suddenly from heart failure on Dec. 25th, 1904. He was a graduate in medicine of Edinburgh of 1888 and took the doctorate of medicine in 1892, receiving a gold medal for his thesis. In the same year he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. He was a member of numerous medical and scientific societies. He came of a medical family, both his father and grandfather having been prominent men in their day. He was himse:f a man of great ability, of remarkable power of work, and of marked versatility. He was the author of a book on "The Natural History of Digestion" and of another on "Modern Gastric Methods." He had contributed many articles to medical societies and to the medical press. In the estimation of his brethren in Edinburgh he held a foremost place amongst the medical song- writers of the younger generation. At the
