+ All Categories
Home > Documents > Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Date post: 05-Jan-2017
Category:
Upload: nguyendan
View: 218 times
Download: 1 times
Share this document with a friend
61

Click here to load reader

Transcript
Page 1: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Obituary Notices of Fellows DeceasedSource: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Containing Papers of aBiological Character, Vol. 94, No. 663 (Apr. 3, 1923), pp. i-xxxvii+xxxviii-liiiPublished by: The Royal SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/81031 .

Accessed: 05/05/2014 04:22

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

The Royal Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Proceedings of theRoyal Society of London. Series B, Containing Papers of a Biological Character.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

OBITUARY NOTICES

OF

FELLO WS DECEASED,

VOL. XCIV.-B. a

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 3: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

CONTE N TS.

PAGE

SiR ALFRED BRAY KEMPE (with portrait) ................................. i

SIR JOHN KIRK .x

THOMAS ALGERNON CHAPMAN (with portrait). xx

ALEXANDER MACALISTEP R .................X.. xxxii

WILLIAM GOWLAND (with portrait) .xl

SIR PATRICK MANSON (with portrait) .xliii

CHARLES Louis ALPHONSE LAVERAN (with portrait) .................. xlix

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 4: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

~~~~t

~~~~~ I

I _

aq - Jo,:;

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 5: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

i

SIR ALFRED BRAY KEMPE, 1849-1922.

AMONG the losses which the Royal Society has recently sustained none has evoked deeper regret than the death of Sir Alfred Bray Kempe, who for twenty-one years, as its Treasurer and one of its Vice-Presidents, took a leading share in the management of its affairs and in the promotion of its prosperity. Some grateful record of his career could not find a more appropriate place than in the pages of the 'Proceedings' of the Society with which he was so long and so closely associated.

The third son of Prebendary John Edward Kempe, Rector of St. James's, Piccadilly, he was born on July 6, 1849. From St. Paul's School, as Camden Exhibitioner, he passed to Trinity College, Cambridge, where, in 1872, he took his degree with special distinction in Mathematics. In the same year he published his first mathematical paper, the title of which-" A general method of solving equations of the nth degree by mechanical means -

showed the bent of his mind in scientific enquiry. For some years he continued to publish mathemnatical essays, but having chosen the Law as his profession, anid become a Barrister of the Inner Temple and Western Circuit, he was soon immilersed in legal business. To the last, however, he never wholly relitnquished his mathematical studies. He used to say of himself that his favourite recreations were Mathematics and Music. He was hardly ever without some problem at which, in such leisure as he could find, he steadily worked. But he refused, as he said, to " empty his note-books inito the 'Proceedings' of the Royal Society." He would not be induced to publish his studies until he had really got to the bottoml of his enquiry.

In the early part of his legal career, before lie became an authority on Ecclesiastical Law, he met with some of the amusing incidents which vary a barrister's experiences, anid these he used to tell with great glee. There was one of his stories in which he related how, as a young lawyer, he had been sent to Germany to take evidence for a case in Court, but had his proceedings interrupted by the authorities and was actually arrested on a charge of "usurping the functions of the German Kaiser!" He was soon released, however, on the score of his ignorance of the law-a palliation which he laughingly said was rather hard on a barrister.

Sir Lewis Dibdin, Dean of the Arches, who of all his legal comrades was perhaps his most intimate associate, has been so good as to supply for this record the following recollections of Kempe's life as a barrister.

" I first came in contact with Kempe in 1881 when he was Secretary of the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission which reported in 1883. This important body, included Tait, Benson, Stubbs, Westcott, Freeman, Jeune and many other distinguished members. Kempe impressed them all by his admirable work and knowledge. Chancellorships began to drop in, and he soon became

a 2

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 6: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

ii Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased.

one of the few recognized authorities on Ecclesiastical Law at the Bar. He was one of the Bishop's Counsel in the Lincoln case and also appeared before the Archbishops at the Lamiibeth Hearing on 'Reservation.' His opinion was sought in a great number of Church cases, and in the much rarer event of proceedings in Court, Kempe was almost certain to be briefed on one side or the other. In 1912 he obtained the 'blue-ribboni' of the Chancellorships- the Chancellorship of London-and as his health was not very strong, ceased to appear as counsel in Court though, I believe, he still advised on 'cases.' In 1913 I asked him and the late Sir Charles Chadwyck Healey, K.C.B., K.C., to act jointly with myself as a conmmittee formed at the request of the Archbishops to ascertain what steps were being taken to secure protection for Church fabrics and to report and make recommendations to their Graces.. Kempe contributed a valuable memorandum as to the law of Faculties, which was printed with the Report dated July, 1914. The War probably prevented the Report's recommendations, which were unanimous, from receiving more attention. Kempe's reported judgments in the Consistory Couirts over which he presided are not numerous.

" He was an adrmirable lawyer. His logical mind, coupled with real learninlg and knowledge of cases, made his opinionis clear anid sound. It was a pleasure to be associated with him in the consideration of legal questions. While his own arguments were easy to follow, it was equally easy to mnake- him follow those of other people. As an opponent in Court he was not less satisfactory. Always courteous and rigidly fair, he could be relied on to put a winning case convincingly. He was not made for the rough and tumble of conitenitiouis advocacy. I think his amniable and refined temperament rather revolted from it, and he was not at his best with a bad case. Probably the clarity of his mind miade it difficult for him to argue a rotten point. It would be true to say that he so conducted his own side of a case as always to win the respect of aIn opponent, while if one had mnuch to do with Kempe, respect inevitably ripened into a warrmi regard and affection,"

The Secretaryship of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Courts lasted for two years. The recognition of the Secretary's growing mastery of Ecclesiastical Law naturally led to the " dropping, in " of Chancellorships of Dioceses above referred to. In the course of years Kernpe held the Chancellorships of Newcastle, Southwell, St. Albans, Peterborough, Chichester, Chelmsford, and finally that of London which he filled for the last ten years of his life. He also becaine a Bencher of the Inner Teinple. It was in the early part of his career that he found inost time to prosecute his researches in the department of mathematics which had specially attracted him. The papers ptublished by him previous to 1879 were the ground on which he was, in that year, proposed for election into the Royal Society. The Certificate wherein his proposers narrated his claimis described him as " distinguislhed for his knowledge of and discoveries in Kinematics." It was signed by a group of the foremiiost matheniaticians of the day, including Cayley, Sylvester, and others. lHe duly becamrle F.R.S. on June.2, 1881. His friend

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 7: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Sir Alfred Bray Kempe. iii

Major P. A. MacMahon, F.R.S., well known for contribution-s to a kindred department of science, has been so good as to fuLrnish for this Obituary the following appreciation of his mathematical work.-

" Kempe's chief contribution to Mathematical Science was his ' Menoir on the Theory of Mathermiatical Form' ('Phil. Trans. R.S.,' 1886). He con- sidered the subject mnatter of mathematical thought to consist of a number of differing and non-differing individuals and pluralities, and that the duty of the mathematician is to investigate the characteristics of such matter. Usually the subject matter of thought is accompanied by what he termed accidental clothing,' which may be geometrical, algebraical, logical, etc., and

his object was to separate it so as to present it in its bare form ready for any raiment that the investigator may find to be appropriate. These bared mathematical forms exist in infinite variety, anjd any one maay appertain to subjects of thought which to all appearance have little or nothing in comlimon.

"A classification of forms, in the sense used by Kempe, involves the classification of all the matters that may be subjected to mathematical thought and processes. Every subject matter is, in his phrase, reduced to necessary subject matter, and he shows wherein consists the infinite variety which the necessary matter exhibits. He studies the nature of the collections of individuals and pluralities, but restricts himself to an exposi- tion of the fundamental principles. After setting forth the definitions and elementary developments, he shows the applications to a variety of cases in such a inanner as to vindicate clearly the basic principles of the study. He also describes a simple and uniiform method of separating, in any given case, the essential front the nion-essential material. He puts in evidence, to this end, a collection of 'units' which may be distinguishable or undistinguish- able, and grouped, or not, into pairs, triads, . . . q-ads. He shows that every collection of units has a definite form due (i) to the number of its component units; (ii) to the way in which the distinguished and undis- tinguished units, pairs, triads, etc., are distributed throughout the collection. To quote his owni words, units may denote 'material objects, intervals or periods of time, processes of thought, points, lines, statements, relationships, arrangements, algebraical expressions, operators,' etc., etc., and may occupy various positions and be otherwise variously circumstanced. It is thus evident that he took a comprehensive view of the work discussed in the memoir.

" In the course of his masterly development, he brings himself into contact with W. K. Clifford's papers ' On the Types of Compound Statement involving Four Classes' (Proc. Man. Phil. Soc.,' vol. 6, 3rd series), with Grassmann's 'Extensive Algebra' ('Amer. J. of Math.,' vol. 1, pp. 350 et seq.), and with Venn's well-known work on 'Symbolic Logic.' In particular, he carries the principles far enough to include primitive and compound algebras, and is able to exhibit the ordinary algebra of quantity as one compounded of two primitive algebras.

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 8: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

iv Obituary Nottces of' Fellows deceased.

"It was the desire to see thie subject matter of thought in its absolutely lowest terms that dominated Kempe's nmathliematical activity during the twenty years (1875-95) in which he published his work. He was President of the London Mathemnatical Society for two years. When he retired from the Chair in 1895 he recurred again to the subject in his valedictory address. In that discourse he discussed the question-What is Mathe- matics? He referred to answers to this question that had been given by John Hopkinson, Civil Enigineer, and by Venn, Logician, from their special points of view. He quoted De Morgan as saying that 'Space and Time are the only necessary matters of thought, and thus form the subject matter of mathematics,' and Benjamin Peiree as responsible for the statement, 'Mathe- matics is the science which draws necessary conclusions.' He did not find these replies satisfactory, and doubted whether either was likely to have effect upon the march of -mathematical research. He had in mirind a definition which might be effective in promoting research by suggesting new paths, new processes, and new classifications and co-ordinations. At the conclusion of his address he is led to the reply upon which he had founded his theory of Mathematical Form nine years before. He did not regard it as being a perfect definition, but as the best that he had been able to devise, and he looked forward to a better one being forthcoming at some future time.

" There is no doubt that his ideas enabled him to visualise a mathematical question, and, indeed, almost any subject of thought, in a novel, interesting and suggestive manner. By means of his graphs of points variously coloured, placed in certain relative positions and connected (or not) by lines, single or multiple, variously distinguished, he was able to form a mental picture of any subject of thought, and to ascertain the nature and extent of the essential differences between different subjects. In this respect he perhaps resembled W. K. Clifford more than aniy other mathematician ancient or modern. This was recognised by those who had the responsibility of dealing with Clifford's posthumous papers, so that the advice and assistance of Kempe was sought, to the great advantag,e of science. It should be men- tioned that Clifford had visualised, in the Keimpe manner, much of the theory of Algebraical Invariants, at that time a comparatively new study, but had met at a certain point with difficulties which at the time of his death he had not succeeded in surmounting. Kbmpe, however, had gone somewhat deeper than Clifford into the graphical representation of mathe- matical form, and, moreover, possessed just that knowledge of the theory of Invariants which enabled him within a short time to fill up the lacunae in Clifford's work. It is safe to say that at that time no one but Kempe could have achieved this. He was the one mathematician qualified for the task.

"Early in his career he was interested in Linkages, a subject which canle to the front by reason of the discovery by Peaucellier-an officer in the French Engineers-of a linkage which would draw a straight line. The

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 9: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Sir Alfred Bray Kempe. v

want of such a mechanism had been felt in engineering practice. Watt, in his steam-engine, had adopted a linkage for guiding his piston, which was an approximate straight-line motion, but the exact solution of the problem had been regarded as an impossibility. Peaucellier's discovery infused new interest into the subject, and other linkages which drew straight lines or arcs of circles of giveni very ]arge radii were soon forthcoming. Kempe, early in the field, gave a delightful series of lectures in Kensington with the title ' How to Draw a Straight Line,' in which he described Peaucellier's discovery and the subsequent developments. These discourses were published in 'Nature,' with many illustrations, and probably constitute the best existing account, both popular and scientific, of the subject.

"He wrote several other papers, mostly on algebras with particular laws, which all bear the impress of his ability to get down] to bed rock in any subject that was occupying his mind. His legal training led him in all cases to lucid and exact statements. His mathematical work, though not large in quantity, was first-rate in quality. What he put forward for publication was his best, anid he will be always remembered as a noteworthy contributor to the Philosophy of Mathematics."

The publication of his mathematical papers established Kempe's reputationl as a man-of-science. But the philosophers quickly discovered that he was also an excellent man-of-business. In 1897, he was elected into the Council of the Royal Society, where he soon took a leading place. Accordingly, in the follow- ing year, when the Treasurership of the Society became vacant, the Council resolved to propose him for election to this important office. Some of the elder and more conservative Fellows, however, were not prepared to place a comparatively young man in a post which they thlought should always be filled by a man of years and of long experien-ce. The general body of the Society supported the President and Council, and Kempe was duly elected Treasurer on St. Andrew's Day, 1898, an office which, combined with that of Vice-President, he worthily held for twenty-one years.

A barrister who in his full professional career would undertake the exacting labours of this Treasurership showed no little courage. Yet from the beginning to the end of his tenure of the office Kempe devoted himself with unstinted zeal not only to his special financial duties, but to the general multiplied business of the Society, as if he had no other vocation in life. It was apt to be forgotten that the time which he gave to the work of the Society was found by him in the midst of all the claims of his profession. The general body of the Fellows thought of him not as the eminent lawyer, but as one of themselves, a notable man-of-science who had undertaken to guide the financial affairs of their Society, and who at each Anniversary gave a brief account of his stewardship. His report onl these annual occasions formed one of the most interesting features of the meetinig. With great clearness, and often with not a little humouir, h-e would sketch the financial position of the Society, and the state of the funds and investmlents under his charge. He

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 10: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

vi Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased.

made himself familiar with the history and purport of the numerous trusts which he had to administer, and he took care to revise and keep up to date the account of each of themn given in the Society's 'Record.'

But only his colleagues in the Council could be fully aware of the amount and varied nature of the work which he accomplished for the Society. Besides mastering the business of the Council, he was an active member of nmany Committees, especially of those which involved expenditure of funds, where his presence as " financial assessor " was of service. His clear common sense, legal knowledge, wide experience of meen, and gift of clear exposition, gave to his opinion great influenice in the Council, and contributed, in no small measure, to shape the policy aid sustain the prosperity of the Royal Society.

It was always interesting to observe with what energy and evident enjoy- mnent he would plulnge into a complicated piece of business and gradually reduce the confusion into initelligible order. A remarkable instance of this strong mental grasp was afforded in 1905. At that time the Statutes of the Society, in consequence of successive alterations and additions, stood in such nleed of revision arid consolidationi that a special committee was appointed to deal with the matter. The Treasurer fouild the task to be eminently congenial to him, but to be also more easily accomplished in the quiet of his homue than amid the discussions of the committee-room. Taking his copy of the Society's 'Year-Book' he entirely recast the chapters on the Statutes, removing some of them into the class of Standing Orders, and making many alterations, additions and improvements, in the direction of clearness and precision. The volume in which he wrought this transformation, together with the inserted slips and pages of fresh manuscript, has been preserved, and through the kind- ness of Lady Kempe is now placed among the archives of the Society. A comparison of its contents with the new Section of Statutes which issued from the hands of the Committee shows that the Treasurer's revision was accepted. The great changes which he made can best be appreciated by comparing the Statutes, as altered, with those previously in force.* The President and Council, in reporting to the Fellows the completion of the revision, naturally remained modestly silent as to the Treasurer's share in the work. But his volumie, with its crowded corrections and additions in ink and pencil, will remain as an interesting examnple of the thoroughness of all that he did for the Society.

The boldest step ever taken by the Royal Society was probably its accept- ance of the control of the National Physical Laboratory. The urgent need of the establishment of an institution for physical testing and standardisation, in a great industrial and manufacturing country like Britain, had been strongly advocated by Fellows of the Society, niore especially by Lord Rayleigh, and eventually the President and Couincil resolved to take charge of the efforts to create and maintain such a laboratory. A favourable site and a commiodious house at Bushey having been obtained from the Crown, the Treasury was induced to place a small grant on the Parliamentary Estimates, and a number

* See ' Record of the Royal Society,' 1912, pp. 131-158.

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 11: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Sir Alfred Bray Kernpe. vii

of generous subscriptions came from well-wishers throughout the country. It was provided that the control of the Laboratory should be placed in the han-ds of the President and Co-uncil of the Royal Society, and that its income and all other property should be vested in the Society. At the same time, the Society became responsible for any deficit that mightt occur in the annual income. A spacious laboratory an.d other buildings were erected, and by March, 1902, various departments were so far advanced that the institution could be formally opened by the Prince of Wales. This initial success of the undertaking was followed by a rapid growth, fresh departmients being started year after year. The advance would lhave been even more mnarked had the available funds permitted. But the expenses of miianagemenlt sometimes exceeded the income. Hence, though the Laboratoryl has amply justified the anticipations of its founders, the financial questions arising out of its develop- ment were a constant source of solicitude to the President and Council, and more especially to the Treasurer, who from the beginning, as the original Treasuirer of the National Physical Laboratory, tlook a keen interest irn its success. Besides watching over the finance of the institution, he did notable service in obtaining subscriptions and otherwise increasing its revenue. The outbreak of the War, in 1914, augmented and complicated the financial difficulties. It was now becomino evident that the task of conducting such a large and costly national institution as the Laboratory had become, lay beyond the province of anly scientific society, and ought properly to be undertaken by the State. This transference of control was at last effected in 1918. On April 1 of that year, the' Royal Society, having initiated the National Physical Laboratory and fostered its development for sixteen years, had the proud :satisfaction of handing over to a Government Departmenit this active and contin-ually growing institution, which had proved itself to be an important addition to the scientific resources of the couintry. Among those who took a large but unobtrusive share in its development, the namne of Alfred Bray Kempe deserves to live in grateful remembrance.

As befitted a barrister, Kempe evidently loved the definiteness, precision, and even the redundancy of legal language; and, as he frequently had to draft a formial resolution in Council or Comnmittee, he found many oppor- tunities of showing his mastery of that style of composition. I rememiber one occasion on which he made use of this acquisition with much effect. The ,question under discussion in the Council was the serious cost of the investiga- tions whieh the Society undertook at the request of the Government. This was naturally a matter wherein the Treasurer was specially concerned, inas- much as the expenses of these in+vestigations were defrayed out of the Society's income, and sometimes amounted to a considerable sum, while the uncertainty of their probable cost always raised a difficulty in the framino of the budget for each year. He accordiingly drafted and read aloud the following statement:

"Whereas the President and Council have frequently beeni requested by various Departments of the Government either to advise them upon, or, in

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 12: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

viii Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased.

some cases, to undertake the supervision of, and in others, the entire responsi- bility for, various scientific investigations of national importance ino provision has been made by Government to meet expenses to which the Society has necessarily beell put in acceding to these requests."

It was amusing to hear the eimphasis which, as he looked up fronm his manuscript, he laid on the prepositioij at the end of each clause. He succeeded in getting negotiations set on foot with the Government, which resulted in a satisfactory arrangement for the future. The Treasurer then prepared a new regulation, approved by the Treasury, whereby adequate provision was made

"for any expenditure which may be incurred by the Royal Society in uindertaking, conatrolling, supervising, or advising uponi matters which the President and Council. may, at the request of the Governiment, undertake, control, supervise, or advise upon."

As he read to the Council this document, which recorded the end of all the troubles of the past, there was a twinkle of quiet satisfaction in his eyes as, with much firmness in his voice, he pronouniced each of the four verbs which described the varied kind of work done by the Society for the Government. The very sound of the words seemed to be pleasant to his ears.

Probably at nio time in its history had the Royal Society been in close relations with so many Departments of Goverinment as during Kempe's Treasurership. There can be little doubt that his sagacity and clearness of judgment in these conferences were of great value in removing difficulties, and impressing on the official mind the nature and extent of the assistance which the Society could render. It was doubtless in acknowledgment of these services that, in 1912, the honour of Knicghthood was conferred upon him. His legal distinction had already been recognised by the University of Durham, which, in 1908, conferred on him the honorary degree of D.C.L.

In the early years of last century when the growing interest in the progress of science was beginning to suggest the creation of independent societies for the prosecution of research in different branches of enquiry, the movement was looked upon with disfavour by some of the leaders of the Royal Society, unless the new organisations were placed under the wing of that Society. This subordilnation was vigyorously resisted, and many such societies have since then been successfully founded, and have been of the greatest value in extending the cultivationi of the sciences which they represent. Yet the Royal Society, withi the hearty goodwill of these younger associations, retains its time-honoured prestige, and finds that its activities have grown more varied and pressing than ever. Its Treasurership is an office that naturally brings the holder into contact with the other younger scientific bodies, anid affords many opportunities for the promotion of friendly inter- course with them. Never were these amenities more happily secured than during Sir Alfred Kempe's tenure of the post. It may be mentioned here that of one of the younger scientific coteries-the Royal Institution-he was

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 13: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Sir Alfred Bray Kenmpe. i

a member for half a century, serving five times on its Board of Management, and taking a keen personal interest in its welfare.

A feature that should not be omitted fromi this sketch of KIempe's life was his abounding love of mountain scenery, which for many years drove him to spend his holidays in Switzerland.. The lure for him was nlot so much the joy of reachinig almost inaccessible peaks (though he could wield his ice-axe and take his share of adventurous climbing), as the quiet enjoyment of the grandeur and beauty of the mountain-world, and the pleasure of being once more anmidst the Alpine flora. In the gratification of this passioni he mnust have visited the Alps between forty and fifty times. To the last he maintained his keen interest in the literature of m-ountaineering.

Allusion has already been made to Kempe's love of mblusic. Gifted with a good counter-tenor voice, he early began to sing. Even at school he was a muember of the St. Paul's School Choral Society, where he sang the treble parts and later the alto. At Cambridge, among his college friends and fellow students, he gained a musical reputation, aind became librarian of the University Musical Society before he was widely known as a mathemliatician. He had a piano at his rooms, oni which he no doubt played the accompaniment to his vocal practisings. One of his friends at the time thus described the relationship between the instrument anid its owner:-

M/istress of humble tones and haughty, Kempe calls me his piano-forte; He plays me when a problem fails, And rises lighter from the scales.

He sang in the Bach Choir under Otto Goldschmidt, who retained a pleasant memory of his " beautiful counter-tenor." He was a menmber of the Moray Minstrels, a private men's choir of glee-singers, where the peculiar quality of his voice enabled him to sing the alto parts. From the weekly meetings, the rehearsals, and the concerts of this choir he was seldom absent until the association was dissolved in the summer of 1907. He likewise occasionally gave his aid to the Westminster Abbey Choir at the evening service.

Fronm this sketchl of his career it must be obvious that for at least the last twenlty years of his life Kempe was practically carrying on two professionls. The ecclesiastical work of the chancellorships of half-a-dozen dioceses, and ultimately the burden of the great diocese of London, together with his professional engagements as a barrister, would have sufficed, it might be supposed, to keep any man fully emiploved; but, in addition, he had the serious task of piloting the Royal Society through its financial undertakings, as well as taking an ample share in the conduct of its other general business. He never shrank, however, from the discharge of his many duties. Whether or not it was this accumulation of work that overtaxed his strength, his health broke down in 1917, while the War was still in full strain. He never- theless maintained a brave fight against increasing weakness, until at last, in

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 14: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

x Obituary Notices of Fellovs deceased.

the sumnmer of 1919, he felt compelled to resign the Treasurership of thle Royal Society; but he consented to retain his seat in the Council.

The intimation of the Treasurer's iresignation filled the Royal Society with sorrow as of a personal bereavement and a sense of unlooked-for anid almost irreparable loss. These feelings were well expressed by the President, Sir J. J. Thomson, in his Address to the Fellows on the following St. Aucdrew's Day

It was," be said, " with the greatest regret, almost with consternatiorn, that the Council heard from Sir Alfred Kempe that the state of his health obliged hiiu to resign the office of Treasurer, which he has held for 21 years. It is difficult to find words adequately to express our indebtedness to him. By his sagacity, his longo experienee of the affairs of the Society, aild his legal knowledge, he has rendered invaluable services in our councils and in directing the policy of our Society. He carries with him oni his retiremenit from the *office which he has so long and worthily held the thanks an-d good wishes of every member of the Society."

After his retirenment from the Treasurership there appeared for a time the possibility that his life might be prolonged. But at last pneumonia super- vened, and he quietly passed away on April 21, 1922. Sir, Alfred Kempe was twice married: first in 1877 to a daughter of Sir William Bowman, Bart., M.D., F.R.S., who died in 1893; and secondly in 1897 to the elder daughter of his Honour Judge Meadows White, Q.C., who survives him. By the second miarriage there are two sons and one daughter.

It is not easy to describe the personal charm which endeared Sir Alfred Kempe to all who came to know him. His modesty, urbanity and frankness were at once apparent; at the same time his sound sense, and the touch of humour or flash of wit with which he would often enliven a formal con- versation, made him singularly attractive. The lasting affection of those who were privileged to enjoy his more intimate friendship was won by his combination of genial qualities, above all by the overflowing kindliness of his nature. His humility of mind and antipathy to anything like self- advertisement read a continual lesson to the ambitious. Thoroughness in all that he unidertook was one of his most characteristic virtues. Not less conspicuous was the friendly readiness with which he would puit his wvide knowledge and experience at the service of others. As scientific circles are not free from the irritability and combativeness that affect other coteries of men, Sir Alfred was again and again appealed to as the irresistible peace- maker. Amid all his various gifts of character there was the glow of his pure Christian soul, which, while never obtruding his religion, could not conceal its be4ign and dominant influence in his life.

ARcHIBALD GEIKIE.

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 15: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

x1

SIR JOHN KIRK, 1832-1922.

JOHN KIRK, second son of the Rev. John Kirk and his wife Christian Carnegie, was born in the Manse of Barry, near Carnloustie in Forfarshire, on Deceinber 19, 1832. His father was the son of John Kirk, a citizen of St. Anidrews; his mother belonged to a cadet branch of the Southesk family. His descent both from a burgess and a county stock may explain the com- bination of caution and courage, of resource and decision, which marked his character.

The Rev. John Kirk, born in 1795, entered St. Andrews' University in 1812; on completing his studies he was admitted a licentiate of the Kirk of Scotland by the presbytery of Arbroath on September 8, 1820, and was ordained by the same presbytery on June 25, 1825, when " presented " by the Crowni to Barry parish. While minister there he became acquainted with Miss Carnegie; they were married oni December 10, 1828. In December, 1837, he was "translated " to Arbirlot, mxidway between Carnoustie and Arbroath. While minister of his new parish he took part in the colntroversies. that induced the "Disruption"; as one who disliked State intervention in church affairs he ceased to be a minister in the Kirk of Scotland on June 28, 1843. Seeking no charge in the seceding corniii-union, Kirk's father lived afterwards, in retiremnent, at Arbroath.

Whatever the merits of the old and distinguished High School of Arbroath then were, it is clear tlhat young Kirk benefited by the enforced leisure of a father with strong character anid scholarly tastes, whose " conversation," the 'Fasti' of the Scottish Kirk inform nls, was good to the use of edifying."

The Rev. John Kirk had matriculated at St. Andrews when he was seventeen; the sister University of Edinburgh founid young Kirk qualified for matricula- tion before he was fifteen. In the Faculty of Arts, which he entered in 1847, Kirk spent only two years; he entered that of Medicine in 1849 and graduated as M.D. in 1854, his thesis, " On the Structure of the Kidney," being considered in connection with the Dissertationi Prizes. In 1854 he also obtained the Diploma of L.R.C.S. Ediuib.; his clinical cormpetence brought- him a Resident Physicianship in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for 1854-55.

As a school-boy Kirk was a keen photog,rapher. While a student he took pains to master the principles of his pastime and to perfect his technique. His trouble was well repaid; photography proved helpful throughout his active career. It remained a recreation after retirement and was only abandoned, owing to failing sight, when he was seventy-five.

While attending the class of botany at Edinburgh, taught by Prof. J. H. Balfour, Kirk developed a liking for natural history pursuits which suirvived during the later and more professional phase of his medical training; while still an undergraduate he was elected, on January 12, 1854, a fellow of the Edirnburgh Botanical Society.

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 16: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

xii Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased.

While Kirk was a Resident Physician, Britain was at war with Russia, and when Edinburgh was asked to nominate some young medical graduates for the Civil Medical Service organised during the Crimean campaign, Kirk was among those selected; he left for Turkey in 1855 and served as an Assistant- Physician under Dr. E. A. Parkes in the British Hospital at Erenkeui on the Dardanelles. Here Kirk gave his spare tinme during a round of the seasons to a survey of the local vegetation and prepared a "List of the Plants collected at Renkioi " which Parkes appended in 1857 to his 'Report on the Formation and Managemenit of Renkioi Hospital, Turkey, during the Russian War, 1854-56.' In April, 1856, a party from Erenkeui ascended Mount Ida; three members, Drs. Armitage, Kirk and Playne, beinig botanical collectors, arranged to pool their specimens and divide them afterwards by lot. In June, 1856, Dr. D. Christison led another party from Stamboul, through Broussa, to the summit of Mount Olympus; in this case, all the botanical material became Kirk's. Early in 1857 Kirk left for home, nmaking a botanical tour through Syria and Egypt on the way.

Balfour advised the Edinburgh Botanical Society in December, 1856, that Kirk had given the University plants from Ida and Olympus; in January, 1858, Balfour announced the receipt of Kirk's Egyptian ones. In February, 1857, Christison read Kirk's " Notice of the Plants of Mount Olympus," which the Society published in 1858; whel Kirk reached London later in 1857, Armitage and Playne collaborated with himn on the collection from Mount Ida. In December, 1857, Kirk read before the Edinburgh Society his " Notice of Egyptian Plants"; this was published, in 1860, along with one "On the Occurrence of a New Muscari on Mount Ida," read in January, 1858. The three friends were jointly responsible for the description of this Muscari, which they had studied at Kew. The courtesy Sir Williamni Hooker then showed them led Kirk to write, on October 17, 1857, from Arbroath, where he was at work on his Syrian plants, offering a local contribution to the Kew Museurn. This letter, which remarks incidenitally that " the Muscari, con- cerning which we took the liberty of consulting you when in London, has turned out to be quite a new species," initiated an active botanical corre- spondence with Kew which was maintained without a break for sixty-four years. Kirk's gift from Arbroath was welcome to Kew; a siinilar economic gift from Dundee, sent at the same time to Edinburgh, was equally welcomle there. Balfour now urged his old pupil to become a naturalist; in November, 1857, he advised Kirk to " apply for a situation in one of the Canadian schools, as teacher of niatural science."

Accident intervened to prevent Kirk from adopting an academiic career. An official Expedition was being organised to proceed to East Africa, under the direction of Dr. David Livingstone, in order to extend existing knowledge of the "geography amid econonmic resources" of the Zanmbesi region. It was decided to add to the party a medical officer, and was conisidered desirable that the physician selected should be imlterested in natural history pursuits. The situation was offered to, and accepted by, Kirk. Laying aside his Syrian

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 17: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Sir John Kiirk. xiii

studies, Kirk made over to Edinburgh University what remainied of his Turkish collections and proceeded to Kew, a " Report " of that institutionl indicates, to study " in the botanical library and herbarium for a lengith of time in prepara- tion for foreign travel." This he was able to do under ideal conditions; Dr. J. D. Hooker, rendered by Antarctic and Himalayan experience an accomplished traveller, had, in 1855, been appointed his father's colleague as assistant-director. The resultant association of two congenial minds ripened into a close friendship, which onily ended when Sir Joseph Hooker died in 1911. It led, moreover, to important immediate consequences. It was arranged that Kirk's botanica'l material should be sent to Kew; when his specimens arrived they justified the inception of the 'Flora of Tropical Africa.' It brought about Kirk's election to the Royal Geographical Society in 1858; though he was only twenty-four, his journeys in Asia Minor led the Society to expect that he might prove a useful member. If Kirk's subsequent travels in East Africa were to render him an eminenit onle, this period of study at Kew was not without its iinfluence on that result. His imiimediate purpose was to become qualified as a nat,uralist; from the younger Hooker he acquired, in addition, a grasp of the prinl-iDles of the "Art of Travel " that was soon to stand him in considerable stead.

The Expedition left Liverpool in H.M.S. "Pearl" on March 10, 1858, and on the outward voyage stayed at Sierra Leone for six days, three of which were spent by Kirk on an excursion to exarmine the islands up the creeks to the north of that port; the specimens obtained were despatched to Kew from Simon's Bay on April 30. The " Pearl " anchored off the Zambesi delta on May 15, and the launch supplied for the use of the Expedition was put together inside the Luawe Bar. Wlhile the stores were being landed, Livingstone's second-in-commnand resigned his post; the duties were assigned to Kirk, who performed them so satisfactorily that no new second-in-command was appointed, and it was as chief officer, even more than as physician and naturalist to the Expedition, that for five years Kirk was to prove " the tried and valued associate" of Livingstone.

The duties of all .three positions were heavy. The launch "Ma-Robert" was a source of anxiety; her engines had not "power sufficient to mtiake headway" in certain parts of the river; she had "mlore holes than sound iron in the bottom"; each yeal, during tbhe first phase of the Expedition, she had to be taken to the coast at Kongoni to be beached for repairs. Professional work was exacting anid was not confined to the Expeditionl. When Livingstone landed there was trouble in Mozambique; Kirk told Balfour in May, 1859, that the Governmient "last autumn finished the war with Maiiano, who set hinself up as inldependent." Kirk did not add that, when the campaign closed, the Governor-General thanked him officially for the medical services he had rendered the Portuguese force operating on the Zambesi. Writing to the yournger Hooker, Kirk alluded to a " conlstant sleepiness which acts very injuriously on Europeans, but of which they become insensible after some time" ; to Balfour he reinarked that " daily

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 18: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

xiv Obituatvry Notices of Fellows deceased.

exercise is absolutely necessary for health out here." Kirk indulged freely in this prophylactic; for five years his health and energy remained uninr- paired.

After Mariano's defeat, official buildings at Tette were placed at the disposal of the Expedition; its base was established there on September 8, 1858. Livingstone and Kirk at once explored Moramballa anid other heights in the Manganija hills, and ascended the Shire to the Murchison rapids. During March-June, 1859, they made the journey rewarded, on April 8, by the discovery of Lake Shirwa; during August-October they were absent on that which brought them, on September 6, to the southernl shore of Lake Nyasa. Between May 15 and November 23, 1860, they were away from Tette oIn their Makololo tour, during which they investigated the Victoria Falls. The return journey, in Batoka canoes, wa.s begun on September 17; while shooting the Kebra-baga rapids, near the Zambesi- Loanrgwe confluence, Kirk's canoe was capsized and lost. Livinlgstone learned oni his return that the Portuguese required the buildings in which the Expeditioni was housed; though the "Ma-Robert" was again only fit to be taken down empty to Kongoni for overhaul, it was necessary to embark tlle stores. The Expeditioni started down stream on December 3 ; on December 21 the " Ma-Robert" grounded and filled. FE'ortunately the stores were saved, and the Expedition spent Christmas, 1860, in camnp on Chimba Island above Seniia. The loss of the " Ma-Robert" hardly caused regret. In 1858 Livingstone had asked the Admiralty to supply a better launch; in 1859 the Admiralty undertook to do so. The new craft was already on her way; she reached the Zambesi on January 31, 1861.

Along with the "Pioneer" came instructions from Englaind to seek a trade route between the coast and Lake Nyasa outside Portucguese territory, and the Expedition entered its second phase. Transferring his base to Johanna in the Com-oros, Livingstone attemupted, in March, 1861, to ascend the Rovuma; 30 miles fronm the mouth the "Pioneer" was stopped by shallows. Re-entering the Zanmbesi by the Kongoni myiouth in April, the " Pioneer" ascended the Zamnbesi and the Shire to Shibisa; her "gig7" was carried thence round the Murchison rapids, and on September 2, 1861, the travellers sailed into Lake Nyasa. Two months later they left the lake, whose shores Kirk was the first to map, and rejoined the "Pioneer" on November 8. Livingstone had arraniged to meet H.M.S. " Gorgon " at the coast early in 1862, and the "Pioneer" went down to the Ruo mouth. The rendezvous was reached on January 11, and Kirk had an opportunity of investig,ating unkknown ground before the " Gorgon " arrived oni January 30.

Finding that the " Pioneer" could neither pass the rapids on the Shire nor ascend the Rovuma, Livingstonie bad ordered from home, at his owni cost, a craft that could be taken to pieces. The " Lady Nyassa " arrived in sections, and was put together and launched on the Zambesi on June 23, 1862. The river was then too low for the new craft to be taken up strearn, and Livingstone therefore miade a second attemnpt to explore the Rovuma. Using

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 19: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Sir John Kirk. xv

the Comoros again as his base, Livingstone entered the Rovunia in the "Pioneer" in August, and was able to ascend that river in her boats for 160 miles. IReturning to the Zambesi late in November, the "Pioneer," with the "Lady Nyassa" in tow, reached Shupanga on December 19, 1862. From there the " Lady Nyassa" went up the Shire to the Murchison rapids, where she was taken to pieces. While porters to carry the sections round the rapids were being, recruited, dysentery appeared. Kirk contracted the disease, so did Livingstone's brother Charles, secretary to the Expedition. Both were ordered home, but, before they could start, Livingstone himself was attacked. Charles Livingstone left for England in March, 1863; Kirk refuised to go until satisfied that his leader was convalescent. Assured as to tbis, Kirk set out for home on May 9, 1863.

Nothing during these various journeys was allowed to impede Kirk's work as a naturalist, though he admitted that " on journeys of geographical discovery the preservation of specimens is a hard task." When working from a base, his material was ample; where areas had to be "explored on foot, the collections were limited, as people are not easily got to carry things." The condition of the launch, "overrun with all sorts of vermin," miade it impossible to consult his specimens once they were prepared. The mishap at Kebra-baqa involved the loss of most of his Makololo material; during the second Rovuma journey native hostility confined the travellers to their boats, so that Kirk " made almost no collection." Yet durilng the course of the Expedition Kirk was able to augment materially the herbarium, museum, and garden collections at Kew, and to prove a generous benefactor to the zoological department of the Natural History Museum as well as to the gardens of the Zoological Society.

During the first phase of the Expedition, transport facilities were uncer- tain; Kirk had to keep beside him for a whole year five cases ready for despatch to Kew, exposed to the risks that attend storage in the tropics. It was not till February, 1860, that Kirk could advise Sir William Hooker of the shipment of the material prepared prior to the Lake Shirwa journey. Some of this went home in H.M.S. "Lynx " in December, 1859, reaching Kew in March, 1860. In 1861 Kew received large consignments from the later journeys. Little arrived in 1862; advice of the despatch of four cases in H.M.S. " Sidon" had reached Hooker on October 25, 1861, but the cases themselves found their way into the Dockyard Stores at Portsmouth, and were not delivered at Kew until October 6, 1883! Some of Kirk's collections accompanied or followed him home; the specimens obtained near Lake Nyasa during September-October, 1861, were not placed in the Kew herbarium till 1865. Kirk?'s zoological contributions to the Natural History Museuml were as important as his botanical contributions to the Kew herbarium; the bird-skins alone exceeded 350, while his specimens illustrated every province of the animal kingdom. His economic exhibits for the Kew museum were as valuable as the systematic material for the herbarium. Contributions to the garden itself were eqlually rich; Kirk's first parcel of

VOL. XCIV.-B.' b

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 20: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

xvi Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased.

East African seeds arrived at Kew on March 3, 1860, and from then onwards consignments were regular; in the case of seeds, however, Kirk shared his collections with Edinburgh and other important botanical centres. During the second phase of the Expedition Kirk managed to despatch cases of living plants to Kew from the Comoros and Zambesia and to send consignments of living animals to the Zoological Society.

The diaries kept by Kirk during 1858-63 are still extant. They show the width of his interests and include detailed observations on the climate, geology, and physiography, as well as on the zoology and botany of Zambesia. The negatives made on paper and exposed by himself, and the prints deve- loped by him from these during the Expedition are still preserved and afford ample evidence of his patience, energy, and skill. He maintained a constant correspondence with the two Hookers and with Balfour. The latter read an important communication from Kirk to the Edinburgh Botanical Society in November, 1859. But while Kirk's letters resembled his father's conversation, he had no time for scientific papers; beyond the letter which Balfour allowed the Edinburgh Society to print in 1860, the only paper by Kirk during the Expedition was a "Report on the Natural Products and Capabilities of the Shire and Lower Zambesi Valleys," published by the Geographical Society in 1862.

Restored to health, Kirk settled in London in October, 1863, to study his natural history collections at Kew and the British Museum, and to arrange some of his notes for publication. In 1864 he discussed, in the Geographical Society's 'Journal,' fossil bones from the Zambesi delta and certain instru- ments used in East Africa. In 1865 he was elected to the Geographical Society's Council, and read at their meetings notes on the two Rovuma journeys, on the gradient of the Zambesi, on the level of Lake Nyasa, on the Shire Rapids, and on Lake Shirwa. A note on the "Climate of East Tropical Africa," read in 1864, was published by the Meteorological Society in 1865. In 1864, the Zoological Society elected Kirk a corresponding member; that year he published in their 'Journal' a "List of the Mammals of Zambesia," and, in 1865, he contributed a letter concerning Gerrhosaurus rolustus, as well as the field-notes accompanying Dr. H. Doorn's determinations of his land and fresh-water shells. In 1864, Kirk published in 'Ibis' a paper on the "Birds of the Zambesi Region "; in 1865, he described a new antelope in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History.' A note by Kirk on the seeds of an African tree, and an " Account of the Zambesi District," both read in 1864, were published by the Edinburgh Botanical Society in 1866. The Linnean Society, to which Kirk was elected on May 5, 1864, and was admitted on June 2, published in their ' Transactions' later in the year an account by him of a new East African genus of Liliacea. Two other papers, read in 1864, on " Dimorphism in the Flower of Monochoria " and on " the Tsetse Fly," were published in the Linnean ' Journal' in 1865; three papers read in 1865, on " A New African Musa," on " A New Zambesian Dye- Wood," and on " The Palms of East Africa," were published there in 1867.

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 21: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Sir John Kirk. xvii

Save for a brief holiday in Scotland and Ireland in July-August, 1864, and for repeated visits to Newstead Abbey, Kirk was " engaged in the investiga- tion of his large and valuable collections, both in the museum and herbarium "

at Kew, from October, 1863, until Sir William Hooker died in 1865. The Newstead Abbey visits were called for because Livingstone and his brother were there engaged in the preparation of their " Narrative," published in 1865; in connection with this they consulted Kirk at every step. When the younger Hooker succeeded Sir William as director of Kew the post of assistant-director was abolished. Kirk had mneanwhile made the acquaintance of the lady he was to marry; the voluntary labours so useful to Kew and congenial to Kirk had to be exchanged for so me paid occupation. A post that attracted him because it was African, offered itself at Zanzibar. Sa'id ibn Sultan, Prince of Maskat and Suzerain of the Zanguebar Littoral, who began to reign in 1804, made Zanzibar the capital of his dominions in 1832. Before he died in 1856, Sa'id arranged that one son should succeed hinm at Maskat, another doing so at Zanzibar; this partition of his dominions led the Indian Government to establish a Political Agency at Zanzibar in 1861. As with other similar establishments, the staff of the Zanzibar Agency included a medical officer. In 1865 there was a temporary vacancy, and the India Office appointed Kirk acting Surgeon to the Political Agency at Zanzibar. Kirk took up his medical duties in January, 1866; in April, 1866, he was appointed by the Foreign Office, H.B.M. Vice-Consul for Zanzibar. Neither post was lucrative, but as Kirk was free to practise medicine his income enabled him to ask Miss Helen Cooke to join him; their marriage took place when she reached Zanzibar in 1867. Professional duty brought Kirk into personal contact with the Sayyid Majid ibn Sa'id, on whom Kirk's character and ability made an impression that predisposed this ruler to rely on Kirk's advice when the Indian authorities appointed him Assistant Political Agent in 1868.

Before Sa'id ibn Sultan made Zanzibar his capital the town was of little importance. By 1868, it had increased in size and had acquired a sinister reputation. Ainxious to purge the place of this reproach, the Sayyid consulted Kirk. The measures suggested proved so effective that when, in 1870, Majid was succeeded by his brother Barghash ibn Sa'id, the new ruler continued Kirk's methods and "purified" Zanzibar. This result led the Sayyid Barghash to hold the Assistant Political Agent in like esteem and, a few years later, induced him to consult Kirk regarding aniother and somewhat different difficulty.

The Maskat protectorate of the Zanguebar littoral began in 1698. It was not imposed by Oman, but was solicited by Mombasa anld the other mainland coast-towns from Kilwa northward to Makhdashau. When Sa'id ibn Sultan began to reign his authority in these coast-towns was little more than nominal; it was only after the transfer of his base to the loyal off-shore island of Zanzibar that the Zanguebar littoral once more acknowledged the suzerainty of Oman. Even then Sa'id avoided interference with the relation- ship between the coast-towns and the Arab chieftains in eastern Equatorial

2

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 22: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

xviii Obituary Nottces of Fellows deceased.

Africa. The principal bond between inland chiefs and littoral towns was a common interest in the traffic in slaves. Though the barbarity and misrule in the interior of East Africa, due to this traffic, were proverbial, the Sayyid Majid saw no reason, when he succeeded his father in 1856, to modify the policy by which the latter had been guided.

Kirk, while mapping the shores of Lake Nyasa in 1861, learned the consequences of this traffic at one of its sources. The country round the lake had been rendered so desolate that supplies were unprocurable; it was because the provisions brought with them gave out that the travellers had to returln to their launch three weeks sooner than would otherwise have been necessary. But Kirk had already realised the political situation. When H.M.S. " Pearl" anchored outside the Luawe Bar in 1858, the Portuguese were at grips with a rebel slave-trader, and Kirk was soon to earn official acknowledgment for medical services rendered to Portuguese troops; at the close of the campaign Livingstone was to be accorded official accommodation for his Expedition. Mozambique, however, had its own " politics"; slave- traders, who were not rebels, enjoyed sufferance; witlh the connivance of the French party, then in power, the slave-trade went on briskly fromn a mouth of the Zambesi near Quillimane, " to supply the demand at Bourbon." With an insight remarkable in a traveller of twenty-six, Kirk disclosed the position to Balfour in May, 1859; six months later Balfour gave publicity to this indication that those then in power at Mozambique were perhaps less distressed at the consequences of the traffic in slaves than disturbed by the interest Livingstone and his companions took in the subject. Almost simultaneously the official facilities afforded Livingstone in 1858 were with- drawn; instructions to seek a trade-route to Lake Nyasa outside Portuguese territory reached Livingstone from England; the Indian Government sent a Political Agent to Zanzibar; the French Foreign Office opened the negotia- tions which ended in an agreement that henceforth both Britain and France should abstain fromn attempts to exercise political control anywhere between the Zanguebar Littoral and the Great Lakes, from the Rovuma north to the Juba and the Nile Basin. France advised Prussia of this undertaking to regard eastern Tropical Africa as the sphere of influence of Zanzibar; that disinterested European power took no exception to the implicit guarantee of protection by Britain and France of the rights of Zanzibar in the region. 'The actual treaty was signed by France and Britain on March 10, 1862.

The Sayyid Majid saw no need to adopt an active policy within his conti- nental sphere of influence; the two great powers pledged to respect his rights might be counted upon to prevent their violation by others. Any attenpt to introduce order into eastern Equatorial Africa involved interference with the traffic in slaves; the Sayyid's most influential subjects were either slave- owners in the off-shore islands, slave-dealers in the coast-towns, or slave- hunters in the interior. The insular slave-owners, who possessed the Sayyid's ear, approved a policy which left their labour supply unaffected. In the mainland coast-towns, however, the Sayyid's avoidance of his responsibilities

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 23: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Sir John Kirk. xix

under the treaty appears to have been interpreted as weakness; it induced such disregard of Zanzibar authority that when Barghash ibn Sa'id began to reign in 1870, the situation resemibled that which confronted his father in 1804. The Sayyid Barghash at once set about the assertion of the rights of Zanzibar; by 1872 he had regained most of the authority his father had exercised on the Zanguebar littoral.

The Sayyid Barghash was intelligent as well as energetic. While he was regaining his continental African rights, war was ragiug in Europe; in 1872 the power at whose instance the protection of Zanzibar had been guaranteed and the responsibilities of Zanzibar defined, was less influential than it had been in 1862; security against European intervention could no longer be relied upon. In this mood the Sayyid consulted Kirk. The advice he received was simple. The Sayyid adopted it; in 1873, when Kirk became H.B.M. Consul-General at Zanzibar, Barghash ibn Sa'id signed an Agreement under which slavery ceased to be legal withiin his sphere of influence. The enforcement of this resolution led to external difficulties: in 1875, Kirk was appointed H.B.M. Consul for the Comoros in addition to his other duties. It also provoked internal oppositioln: in 1875 Mombasa repudiated the suzerainty of Zanzibar and implored Egyptian "protection"; the Khedive sought permission from Britain to annex the town and all the territory between its littoral and the great lakes. Again the Sayyid asked Kirk for advice and again he followed it; he reoccupied Mombasa and accompanied Kirk to England. Her Majesty Queen Victoria, in 1875, received the Sayyid in audience; Her Majesty's Ministers refused to grant the Khedive's request.

When giving the Sayyid advice that it was his duty as an Indian Political Officer to accord, Kirk took the opportunity to make a suggestion as a personal friend whose interest in natural history pursuits had taught him that eastern Equatorial Africa contained " sources of wealth " of which the Sayyid had little conception. While exploring the Shupanga forests near the Zambesi in 1859 Kirk had discovered the iinportant rubber-yielding Landolphia whose trivial appellation perpetuates his own memory. At a later date his attention was one day attracted by native boys at play with an elastic ball. Having satisfied hinmself as to the composition of the ball, Kirk proceeded to run down the source of the substance of which it consisted, aild as a result of his enquiry caine to know that, throughout the coast-belt of the Zanguebar littoral and possibly further inland, rubber in quantity was to be had for the seeking. Desirable though it was on humane grounds to suppress the traffic in slaves, the fact that this measure affected the material condition of the coast- towns could not be gainsaid; Kirk urged the SayyicL to use his authority in creating a new industry which might replace the traffic that had become illegal. When the Sayyid, now addressed as " Sultan," returned to Zanzibar, he took what steps he could to enlist the interest of his subjects in the scheme suggested by Kirk; the latter, who had remained behind, used the opportunity to make the necessary representations in London. By the time Kirk reached Zanzibar in 1876 the preliminary nmeasures required were

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 24: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

xx Obttuary Notice of Fellows deceased.

completed and by 1878 the establishment of the East African Rubber Trade was an accomplished fact.

When Kirk arrived, however, the " Sultan" still had political difficulties as to which he sought advice. Again Kirk's advice was simple. The " Sultan" took in hand the amicable adjustment of his differences with the various Arab chieftains of the interior. Having thus secured their confidence and co-operation, and at the same time diverted their energies from the capture of slaves to the collection of rubber, the introduction of law and order into eastern. Equatorial Africa proved simple. In India, where similar difficulties are not unknown, this result gave satisfaction to the Viceroy in Council, whose personal portfolio inicludes political documents, and who appreciated how instrumental in securing it the caution and foresight of the Assistanit Political .Agent at Zanzibar had been. But India did not then "recognise" the performance of services which, though rendered under her instructions, were performed beyond her borders, and the Home Government felt that the situation had been met when, in 1879, Kirk was made a C.M.G. In 1880, however, the Government of India promoted Kirk to the post of Political Agent at Zanzibar, notwithstanding the fact that it was only as a medical officer that his Indian service had begun. Her Majesty's Government thereupon reconsidered their judgment; when Kirk reached England on furlough in 1881, he was created a K.C.M.G.

Kirk's official duties during 1866-80 did not impair his activities as a natural historian. He repeated at Zanzibar, on a larger scale, what he had done at Erenkeui during 1855-57, by undertaking a biological survey of the island. HIe found time to edit the inotes made by Dr. W. G. Baikie in 1862 during a "Journey from Bida in Nupe to Kano in Haussa "; these were published by the Geographical Society in 1867, in which year also the Zoological Society published a letter from Kirk regarding the "Animals of Zanzibar." A holiday visit in 1868 to the creek of Dar-es-Salaam on the mainland opposite Zanzibar led to Kirk communicating to the Linnean Society, in 1868 and in 1870, two notes on " Copal" which were published in 1871. Large zoological and botanical collections, includinig numerous living animals and plants were sent home annually until 1873; the animals included among other novelties the interesting "Red Monkey" of Zanzibar; the plants included with much else an East African Cycad, as striking among vegetables as Colobus Kirkii is among beasts. During an official visit to the African coast in 1873, Kirk effected an " Examination of the Lufigi River Delta," which the Geograplical Society published in 1874, and made for Kew a valuable collection of interesting and peculiar Somali plants.

So exhaustive up to 1873 had been Kirk's botanical survey of Zanzibar that after that year his contributions to the herbarium at Kew practically ceased. This did not mean any diminution of botanical interest; on the contrary, as his work in connection with " Copal " and " Rubber " showed, that interest had once more become dominant, though it had assumed a new form. Nor did his economic efforts end with atteimpts to extend old and to

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 25: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Sir John Kirk. xxi

create new industries connected with East African vegetable products. He acquired a shamba at Mbweni, where he established a coffee plantation, to supplemeilt the native industry connected with "cloves," as well as an experimental garden for the introduction and dissemination of useful exotic plants likely to thrive in Zanzibar and on the opposite littoral. The policy which led him from 1860 onwards to share his collections of seeds with botanical institutions other than Kew now bore fruit. These early courtesies made it easy for him to arrange exchanges between Mbweni and the botanical gardens in Natal, Mauritius, India, Ceylon, Malaya and elsewhere. His exchanges of living plants were, however, still almost exclusively with Kew, where keen interest was taken in Kirk's public-spirited venture. The exchanges called for the collection and propagation at Mbweni of asthetic as well as economyic East African species; Kirk's notes on one of these ornamental Africall plants, with remarks by Prof. D. Oliver, were com- municated to the Linnean Society in 1875 and published in 1877, along with a paper, read in 1876, " On the identification of the modern Copal Tree with that which yielded the Copal or Animi now found in the earth on the East Coast of Africa." The work done by Captain Wharton led Kirk to com- municate to the Geographical Society, in 1877, a note on " Recenlt Surveys on the East Coast of Africa," which was published in 1878. As Kirk was about to leave for Europe, an earthquake was experienced at Zanzibar on December 18, 1880. Kirk's official account of the occurrence was forwarded by Lord Granville to the Geological Society and published by them in 1881. While at home during 1-881-83 Kirk served on the Council of the Linnean Society; in 1882-83 he was a vice-president, and at a meeting in 1882 he exhibited and described various East African economic products. The Geographical Society, in 1882, awarded Kirk their Patron's Medal " for his long-continued and unremitting services to geography in East Africa." But Kirk, though " oni furlough " in 1 881-83, was hardly " on leave"; he was unable to resume his work on his collections or to enjoy freedom from diplomatic colncern.

The Government of India had paid little heed to what was happening in East Africa between the signing of the Anti-Slavery Agreement in 1873 and the creation of the East African Rubber Trade in 1877-78. This industrial success made it obvious that law and order had been established throughout the " Sultan's " dominions, and it was this establishment of. effective govern- ment that led to Kirk's promotion. The Imperial German Government, however, had kept a watchful eye on all that had been taking place at Zanzibar since 1873. The German Foreign Office had good reason to know how efficient and how influential an officer Kirk was. Besides being the consular representative of the British Sovereign in the "Sultan's" capital, Kirk was also Consul-General for Portugal, Consul for Italy, and Consul for the Free City of Hamburg. In the latter capacity, and as the only repre- sentative of Germany, Kirk had protected the interests of German subjects in Zanzibar and the towns of the Zanguebar littoral as faithfully and

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 26: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

xxii Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased.

effectively as he did those of the other Powers by whom he was accredited. German statesmen conceived a desire to secure control of the East African Rubber Trade, which had been created as the result of Kirk's represenita- tions. To this end, German public opinion was educated to believe that the improvement in the conditions of existence of the populations of eastern Tropical Africa was evidence that Britain had been establishing in the region a veiled political control which violated the spirit of the Franco- British Treaty of 1862. By the timne that Kirk reached Londonl in 1881, the Foreign Office knew that the feeling towards Britain in Berlin resembled that entertained in Paris in 1861, and that the concern felt by the Germnan Chancellor at the growth in prestige of the Zanzibar ruler must be taken into account along with the satisfaction expressed by the Indian Viceroy in Council at the establishment of settled government throughout the Zanzibar dominions. But Germany did not rest content with propaganda in Europe: advantage was taken of Kirk's absence from Zanzibar during 1881-83 to bring other influenices to bear on the "Sultan," who agreed, subject to the assent of France and Britain, to concede some of his rights on the mainland to German subjects. By 1883 Her Majesty's Government considered the situation at Zanzibar too critical to justify the continuance of a dual political control. In 1883 the Viceroy of India was relieved of his Zanzibar responsibilities; the bargain between the two departnments concerned, when the Zanzibar Agency was transferred to the Foreign Office, included the assunmption by the Home Governmeint of liability for the pensions of all members of the existing Agency Staff.

When Kirk returned to Zanzibar in 1883 as the direct diplomatic repre- sentative of Britain he found himself relieved of his duties as Consul for Hamburg; the arrival of an Imperial German Consul-General, equal in status to himself, was imminent. The Gxerman Government selected as their representative an African explorer deservedly held in as high esteem by German geographers as Kirk was by English travellers. Consul-Genieral Rohlfs' arrival in 1884 was attended by considerable ceremony, meant to invite comparison with Kirk's unobtrusive return. The " Sultan" was not impressed; he had been in England in 1875. The new official made it his duty to treat Kirk with a studied discourtesy, which the latter met with imperturbable equanimity. Meanwhile the German applicants for conces- sions wished to see the price they had offered the " Sultan " somewhat reduced, anid various Germian "explorers" became busy on the mainland, concluding " treaties " with potentates in what was still the " sphere of influence" of Zanzibar. The failure of the German Consul-General to ruffle Kirk's temper led him to lose control of his own; the German Foreign Office found it necessary to disavow the unaceredited emissaries who had been tampering with the allegiance of the subjects of friendly powers, and entered into direct negotiations with the British Foreign Office, with a view to arriving at a mutual understanding as to the respective spheres of influence of the two countries in East Africa. When these negotiations opened in

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 27: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Sir John Kirk. xxiii

1885, Portugal recognised the services of her Consul-General at Zanzibar by bestowing oni Kirk the Grand Cross of the Royal Military Order of Jesus Christ. In 1886 the German East African Company was founded. Her Majesty's Government knew in advance that, thanks to Kirk's foresight, Britain was already assured of a footing in East Africa equal to that thus secured by Germany, and one of the last acts of Mr. Gladstone's Administra- tion, in 1886, was to pronmote Kirk to be G.C.M.G. This recognition coincided with a sudden Gernman complainit that Kirk had " thwarted German aspirations in East Afiica." The campaign against him ceased as abruptly as it had begun when Kirk, in 1887, "retired on accounrt of ill-health."

It gave the scientific friends of Rohlfs satisfaction to imagine that Kirk had been withdrawn from Zanzibar in deference to the wishes of their Government. That German conclusion was accepted in this country by candid friends and conscientious enemies of Her Majesty's Administration. This somewhat unnatural alliance was due to the common failure of two critical coteries to ascertain whether Kirk's resignation had been accepted by the existing Cabinet or its predecessor; Kirk was too loyal a public servant to divulge what Governiment and Opposition alike thought it unldesirable to reveal. If this silence confirmed the two coteries in their belief, it also broke up their tenmporary alliance; they were unable to agree either as to their suspicions or as to their apprehensions. Some saw in Kirk's return to England the effect of the " mnailed fist " and feared that British interests had been sacrificed; others recognised the influence of the "hidden hand" and dreaded a revival of the traffic in slaves. Both suspicions could not well be correct; perhaps neither was. Kirk had served at Zanzibar during 1866-83 under Indian pension rules. In the case of medical officers these rules render retiremaent at the age of fifty-five compulsory; even if the interdepartmental bargain of 1883 had modified Kirk's obligation to retire, it could not affect his right to resign in 1887. The suspicions entertained then still survive; they are still as conjectural as the German belief on which they were based. The apprehensions then formied were soon dispelled. In 1888 Kirk's friend, Sir Williami Mackinnoin, founded the British East African Company; this country, it was seen, had secured concessions as substantial as those obtained for Germlany by Dr. Peters in 1886. In 1889 the English Foreign Office, where Kirk was held in as great esteemn under the new Administration as under the previous one, appointed him Plenipotentiary for Great BBritain at an Anti-Slavery Conference about to assemble in Brussels. This Conference resulted in an agreement which put an end to the traffic in slaves throughout Africa. When the Conference assembled in 1889, the Government at Rome, remembering Kirk's services in this humane cause while he was their Consul at Zanzibar, appointed him a Knight Commander of the Order of the Crown of Italy; when the Conference closed in 1890 Kirk was created a K.C.B.

Though Kirk had now made England his home, the deputation to Brussels was not the last public service involving absence from this country he was

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 28: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

xxiv Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased.

asked to undertake. In 1890 Uganda was granted British protection, and when, in 1895, the territories of the British East African Company were taken over by the Crown, a railway from Mombasa to Uganda was sanctioned. At the same time political trouble had arisen in West Africa; in connection with this, Kirk was appointed H.M. Special Commissioner to the Niger Coast, and was thus able, nearly " forty years on," to visit Upper Guinea a second time. When he returned from Nigeria Kirk was nominated by the Foreign Office chairman of the committee charged with the construction of the Uganda Railway. This latter duty involved two journeys of inspection in East Africa; the last of these was mnade after he was seventy.

Diplomatic duties during 1883-87 had demanded Kirk's continuous presence at Zanzibar and precluded further field-survey. This only intensified his efforts at Mbweni to introduce new useful plants. Before he left for England, in 1887, Kirk arranged for the continuance of this economic work by handing his shamba over to the Universities' Mission; this organisation made such good use of its opportunities that when Britain resumed the protectorate of Zanzibar in 1890, Kew was allowed by Kirk to publish his meteorological data for 1878 as a guide to the weather-factors affecting acclima- tisation there. In 1892, again at the request of Kew, Kirk supplied for publication some of his own results at Mbweni, in the form of a memorandum on the "Climate and Vegetable Products of Zanzibar and Pemba," the meteorological data in this case including the years 1880-84. During his visit to the Niger Coast in 1895 Kirk's interest in economic products was as miarked as it had been in Zambesia a generation earlier, though the gardening tastes manifested at Zanzibar and maintained at Sevenoaks were now reflected in a special attention given to plants worth growing under glass in Europe. In 1896 Sir William Thiselton-Dyer once more consulted Kirk on a subject of vital interest; with full knowledge, impartial judgment, and a marked capacity for looking ahead, Kirk supplied a memorandum indicating the sites most suitable for botanic stations to serve what are now the colonies of Kenya and Nyasaland. At the same time, Kirk contributed to 'Nature' a note on "Cattle Plague in Africa," published in 1896, and another on " African Rinderpest," published in 1897. During his two later visits to inspect the progress of the Uganda Railway, Kirk again gave close attention to the economic vegetable productions of the country and to ornamental plants suitable for European gardens; on both occasions he included Zanzibar in his route and revisited his old Mbweni shamba.

When Kirk reached England in 1887 the Geographical Society at once reappointed him to their Council; he served as a member during 1887-90, as a vice-president during 1891-94, and as foreign secretary during 1894-1911. On June 9, 1887, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, as a naturalist; he served as the representative of botany on the Council during 1893-95, and in 1894-95 was a vice-president. In 1896 he was appointed an original member of the Tsetse Fly Committee, and continued to serve on this important body after its reference was enlarged, in 1900, to include malaria,

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 29: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Sir John Kirk. xxv

and after its scope was widened still further, in 1904, to deal with tropical diseases generally. So great was the value attached to Kirk's sagacity that his appointment was continued even after it was known that, owing to the failure of his eyesight, he was no longer able to attend meetings. During 1902-04 he also served as geographical member of the Geology Sectionial Committee. In 1888 the Zoological Society once more showed their high appreciation of his work. He had for nearly a quarter of a century been accorded the privileges of corresponding membership, a distinction conferred on a limited number of those "resident out of the United Kingdom," who "either are distinguished in zoology or have done special service to the Society." So fully, under both prescriptions, had Kirk gained their approba- tion that the Society, on the proposal of the late Dr. Gunther, took the opportunity afforded by the automatic termination of his corresponding membership to elect him, by unanimous vote, one of their twelve Honorary Fellows. When Kirk returned from Brussels in 1890, with a hope that had inspired his diplomatic endeavours for a quarter of a century at last fulfilled, his own Uiniversity of Edinburgh made himn an LL.D. Kirk had, however, already shown, by what he himself had done, that he regarded the abolition of the traffic in slaves as only the first instalment of what Europe owed to Africa. During twenty years of service in Zanzibar he had donie much to promote the material interests of the inhabitants of East Africa. While " purging Zanzibar of its reproach," he had improved the public health of the island; by his work at Mbweni he had miade available there and on the miainland many valuable exotic products hitherto unknown; by establishing the export trade in East African rubber, he had provided a substitute for the traffic in slaves. Much, however, especially in the medical field, still remained to be done, and, after 1890, Kirk lost no opportunity of promoting the object he still had at heart. The decision of the Royal Society to establish its Tsetse Fly Comimittee, which coincided with the close of Kirk's service on the Council, was not overlooked, and the value of Kirk's work was realised outside the Society; in 1897 the Cambridge Philosophical Society elected him one of their honorary members, and the University of Cambridge conferred on him the honorary degree of Sc.D. In 1898 the University of Oxford followed this example and made him a D.C.L. After Kirk resigned the Foreign Secretaryship of the Geographical Society, the sister society at Marseilles marked their appreciation of the courtesy of his correspondence by electing him one of their honorary members.

The variety of Kirk's activities has induced different estimates of the importance of his work. Statesmen who have reviewed it are divided in their opinion, according to political teinperament, as to whether the sup- pression of the slave trade, which lay at the root of Kirk's diplomatic efforts, or the acquisition of Britain's East African possessions, which was the accident of his foresight and caution, be the greater achievement. Colleagues in the public service and professional brethren, on the other hand, and perhaps with reason, place the " purging of Zanzibar " before either.

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 30: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

xxvi Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased.

Travellers and map-makers consider, possibly with justice, that Kirk's services to African geography were of more scientific consequence than all that he did for the peoples of Africa or for the British Empire. This judgment is at least a corrective to the uninformed though popular impression that Kirk, as an explorer, was no more than the " companion of Livingstone." It is true that Kirk's geographical services were primarily incidental to his duties as the " chief officer " of the Zambesi Expedition; what is sometimes overlooked is that these services, though so " long- continuied and unremitting" as to earn the award of a medal by the Geographical Society, were supplementary to his work as naturalist to the Expedition. That work, in the zoological field, met with especial recognition by the Zoological Society. Yet, striking as Kirk's contributions to zoological knowledge were, they did not exceed in extent or in value his services to regional botany, while it was by the application of botanical knowledge to practical affairs that Kirk did most both to advance scientific interests and to benefit those of industry and commerce.

When Kirlk studied at Edinburgh, would-be naturalists were dependent on the trainiing afforded by the i-nedical curriculum. There is no evidence that Kirk, as a student, wished to beconle a naturalist. He was undoubtedly interested in botanical pursuits, but it was as a physician that he went to Turkey in 1855. It was less because Kirk had devoted his leisure there to botanical exploration than because he undertook the elaboration of hlis collections when he returned, that Balfour, in 1857, urged him to beconme a "'teacher of natural science." It was as a physician interested in natural history pursuits, not as a naturalist who happened to possess a medical qualification, that Kirk joined the Zambesi Expedition in 1858. It was as a medical officer that he went to Zanzibar in 1866. If he owed his election to the Royal Society in 1887 to his work as a naturalist in Africa, and was appointed to Council in 1893 as a botanist, it was soon realised how sound his medical judgment was, and it was as a physician with African experience that his services thereafter were maiinly in request.

Thirty years ago it was still known to the Fellows of the Society that Kirk was one of the most competent of contemnporary botanists. Surprise is now expressed at this judgment, because it so happens that Kirk added little to botanical literature. The explanation is as simple as it is sufficient; Kirk's devotion to the public interest precluLded much publication, and caused most of what he did publish to take an economic turn. Soon after Livingstone haJ reached Zambesia, the Foreign Office arrived at the conclusion that a ' Flora of Tropical Africa' was desirable. Kew was asked to advise as to whether the publication of such a work were possible. Some little time after he had expressed his views, Sir William Hooker was informed by the Foreign Office, on April 23, 1861, 'that " in the opinion of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, it will be expedient to defer considelation of the question of the publication of a 'Flora of Tropical Africa' until the results of the present Expedition under the direction of Dr. Livingstone shall be known."

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 31: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Sir John Kirk. xxvii

Sanction to proceed with a work which the Foreign Office realised was required depended therefore on the quality of Kirk's collections.

As a botanical collector Kirk showed that capacity for taking pains which some regard as a form of genius. Witb this was associated a sanity of out- look that good collectors sometimes lack. The treatment accorded by Kirk to his Erenkeui collection, as compared with those frolmi Ida and Olympus, shows that from the outset he realised the fundamental distinction between a botanical survey and any field-excursion. At Sierra Leone he had " looked on it as of more importance to examine and dissect than to preserve, miost of the plants of the district being already in England." He understood, there- fore, the essential difference between observation and mere collection, and, what was of more consequence, he had sufficient strength of mind to forego collection when occasion demanded. When his canoe and its contents disappeared in the rapids at Kebra-baqa, Kirk managed to save, along with his life, some plants which he " seized as they were about to sink." In find- ing consolation that the specimiens " saved are those from the Victoria Falls, so that we have something new even out of this wreck," Kirk was not writing as one who, in late nineteenth century laboratory phraseology, was " a mere collector." Hard as he found the task of preserving specimens in Zambesia to be, he did lnot evade it. Few collectors have bad their capacity tested so severely; no collector's work has stood the test better. When the four cases despatched by Kirk from the Zambesi in 1861 reached their destination twenty-two years later, the herbarium-keeper at Kew found their contents to be "in good condition." While aware that in reality his botanical work in Zambesia was no more than a long drawn-out field-excursion, Kirk never allowed the difficulties of preservation to interfere with his duty " to examine and dissect." He made his work conform as nearly as possible with the standard of a field-survey; his specimens are accompanied by valuable field- notes, and most of them are further enriched by excellent pencil and coloured sketches showing habit and floral detlails. The issue raised by the Treasury was settled as soon as the earlier instalnments of Kirk's material arrived; before Kirk was invalided hone in 1863 the decision of the Lords Com- missioners had been reviewed. Wheni, later in 1863, Kirk began to study his African collections at Kew he had before him a modern instance of an ancient choice. He could nlake a useful contribution to systematic literature, and might incidentally acquire an academic reputation, by describing as much of his own nmaterial as the time at his disposal would allow. During that period, whatever it might be, he could, however, do more for African botany by foregoing the opportunity of earning individual distinction and giving undi- vided attention to the furtherance of the undertaking for which the quality of his own material had enabled Kew to obtain Treasury sanction. He looked on it as of more importance to examine and dissect than to describe, and thus spent all the time at his command on studies which have enabled others "to enter into his labours." The 'Flora of Tropical Africa' which Kirk thereby did so much to assist is now, after having occupied the attention of

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 32: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

xxviii Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased.

Kew during sixty years, nearing its close. The descriptive botanists who during that period have benefited by the use of Kirk's notes and determina- tions understand why Kirk added little to systematic literature; they know how just was the estimate formed by Kirk's contemporaries of his qualifica- tions; they appreciate the full significance of the acknowledgment, in the last Kew "Report" for which the elder Hooker was responsible, of the "great service" Kirk had rendered in naming "his own anid other East African collectionus."

The in-timation in an earlier Kew " Report" that Kirk on reaching London in 1863 at once began work on "'his collections both in the nmuseum and herbarium" may help to explain Kirk's resolution to forego descriptive work. It also affords evidence of the sense of duty which informed everything Kirk did. The Zambesi Expedition was charged with the extension of oulr know- ledge of the geography and the economic resources of the region explored. It was Kirk's business as naturalist to the Expedition to assess these resources in the biological field; his first consideration was the study of his economic material in the museum. This did not imply that Kirk failed to recognise that sound economic study depends on exact systematic work; writing from Sierra Leone in 1858, he had already remarked--" such vegetable products as I obtained I have tried to connect with the plants yielding them": this feeling was as strong during his subsequent service in Zanzibar; writing to Kew from Dar-es-Salaam in 1868 he said-" I met with one or two things which will prove of interest to you, being supplemented by specimens." The precedence Kirk gave to inuseum study in 1863 shows, however, that as a competent systematist he regarded the identification of his specimens as a means to economic ends, not an end in itself; that he considered the practical benefit to industrial interests of the information to be derived from his material of more immediate consequence than the question as to how many of his plants were " new to science." At the same time it is clear that Kirk's decision in 1863 to give the practical application of natural knowledge precedence over " mere discovery" was not a consequence of the terms of reference of the Zambesi Expedition. His papers on the plants of Olympus, Ida and Egypt exhibit the same tendency. His first gift to Kew was a series of photographs he had taken, in 1856, of useful Dardanelles timber-trees. Finding himself, when at Arbroath in 1857, " residing in the centre of the flax manufactures," Kirk prepared for Kew an exhibit illustrating the various stages of linen production. Dundee, which had been that centre when Kirk's father became minister of Barry, was now the headquarters of the jute industry and Kirk obtained thence for the Edinburgh collection, in November, 1857, an exhibit illustrating jute.

The preparation by Kirk of museum exhibits was attended to with all the care bestowed on the preservation of herbarium specimenis. Nor is this the only circumstance that renders his economic material so useful; he took the greatest pains to ensure that the actual exhibits were "supplemnented by specimens" for the identification of the source of the product concerned. In

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 33: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Sir John Kirk. xxix

the course of his work at Sierra Leone, Kirk " founld that extreme caution was requisite before receiving native testimony," and it is to the consistent exercise of this caution in Zambesia, Zanzibar and on the Zanguebar littoral that the unusual value of Kirk's field-notes and material is due.

The rubber-yielding Laindolphia of Shupanga was not the only discovery made by Kirk which has proved of public benefit. Among other instances of the kind one that arrests attention is that of the " Kombe," the source of the arrow-poison used by the inhabitants of the Shire valley; it is to Kirk's identification of the species of Strophanthus concerned, that pharmacology is indebted for " one of its valued modern remedies." But while Kirk lost no opportunity of developing industries likely to utilise the indigenous products of East Africa, he was under no illusion as to the nature of most industries whose staples depend upon the exploitation of uncultivated raw material. There was a feeling in this country that, by the acquisition of what is now the Tanganyika territory and the consequent control of the rubber trade created as the result of Kirk's representations, Germany had obtained some advantage over Britain. The fact that Kirk had already introduced to his experimental garden at Mbweni examples of various American rubber-yielding species, affords an indication that he realised that the trade in wild rubber was only a phase in the history of the industry, and that for economic reasons this phase must end as soon as plantation-rubber should become a marketable commodity. It was the recognition of what is a general truth that inspired Kirk when he founded his experimental garden; it is for this reason that the work he did at Mbweni lives after him, and constitutes the greatest of the services rendered by him to mankind. His mnemory is perpetuated in many ways; geographers recall it when they allude to the Kirk Range, west of the Shire River; zoologists do so when they speak of Kirk's Gazelle; botanists have enshrined it in the Simarubaceous genus Kirkia. If Kirk himself cared for this kind of immortality it is possible that he felt miost pleasure in the name " Kirk's Shamba," sometimes used for his experimiental garden, regard- ing which he said in a letter to Kew, written in 1915: " I wish I might again visit the place and see the result of my work." One result of that work has been that the East African botanic stations founded after Kirk left Zanzibar, and not by Britain alone but by Germany as well, were stocked in the first instance mainly from Kirk's garden at Mbweni. Though Kirk was aware that, owing to geographical accident, what had become German territory benefited most by what he had been able to do at Zanzibar, this awoke no grudging thought; the advantage accrued, as he had hoped it would when his work was begun, to the peoples of Africa.

That, after he had passed four-score years, Kirk's thought should still be of the work that had fallen to his hand rather than of the part he had taken in doing it, was in keeping with his use of the wide and exact knowledge he possessed. Here he manifested what was perhaps the one defect of his merits. Such was Kirk's courtesy, that no appeal for information which he could with propriety afford was ever made in vain. But this courtesy was

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 34: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

xxx Obituary Notices oJ Fellows deceased.

associated with a modesty so unobtrusive, that enquirers, expert in their own special subjects, when profiting by Kirk's assistance, did not always realise that his knowledge and judgment were equally valuable in fields of activity foreign to theirs. When, on January 15, 1922, Sir John Kirk, full of years and honour, died at Wavertree, Sevenoaks, the Royal Society lost a distin- guished Fellow, who throughout a long and active career had followed the business, prescribed by its founders, of viewing "rarities of nature," and of considering " what may be deduced fronm them, or any of them, and how far they, or any of them, may be improved for use or discovery."

D. P.

THOMAS ALGERNON CHAPMAN, 1842-1921.

THOMAS ALGERNON CHAPMAN was born on June 2, 1842, at Glasgow. He was the son of Thomas Chapman, a well-known naturalist, under whose care he received in early years a training which doubtless stood him in good stead when in after life he devoted all his available stock of time and energy to the practical pursuit of entomology.

He was educated at Glasgow University, where he graduated as M.D. with honours. After serving as Resident Physician and Surgeon at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, he turned his attention to the study and treatment of mental diseases, becoming Assistant Medical Officer of the Joint Counties Asylum of Abergravenny, and being subsequently appointed Medical Superintendent of the City and County Asylum at Hereford.

Retiring in 1896, he settled at Reigate, and from that time made the investigation of entomological problems the principal occupation of his life. In pursuit of this object he was most successful, sparing no time or pains in the search for any evidence that might tend to the solution of doubtful questions in insect economy and life-history. These researches were the occasion of many visits to various parts of Europe, especially the Riviera, the Alps, the Pyrenees, Sicily, Spain anid Norway. His journeys abroad were always undertaken with the definite object of clearing up some point that had eluded the observation of previous students.

Taking especial interest in the life-histories of the Lyceanidae, a family of butterflies remarkable for the association of many of its members in their immature stages with ants, he discovered, described and figured many larvae belonging to that group that were previously unknown. These were Polyommatus eros, Agriades escheri, A. thersites, Latiomia orbitulus, -L. pyrenai ca, Albulina pheretes, Lyccena alcon and L. euphemus-a list which bears amnple witness to his industry and power of acute observation in the field. Inicidentally, he performed the remarkable feat of discovering,

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 35: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

'k I . 1 4

1. %41 I

-t I

'A'

I

I

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 36: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Thomnas Alqernon Chlapman. xxxi

in a district so well known to naturalists as the south of Fraince, a butterfly, Callophrys avis, entirely new to science.

His work in the field was supplemented by careful laboratory investiga- tions at home. Many valuable results followed his examination of lepi- dopterous genitalia, in which he included the elucidation of other groups besides his favourite sttb-family, the Lyceanidee. A conspicuous instance of his successful work with the microscope was his discovery of the winter food of the larva of Lyco3na a?,ion, a " blue " butterfly found in some circlum- scribed localities in the south-west districts of England. The larva was known to be tended by ants during part of its life, but its mode of sub- sistence during the winter months remained unrecognised until Chapman, by submitting the contents of its alimentary tract to microscopic investiga- tion, found that it actually preyed upon the larvae of its hosts.

Much careful and laborious work was undertaken by Chapman on the structure of the lepidopterous pupa; in this department his investigations proved to be of great phylogenetic value. Much of his attention was given to the Micropterygidme, an extremely primitive lepidopterous group showing strong affinity with the Trichoptera. The life-history of one of the nmost interesting members of this family, Eniocephala calthella, was worked out by him with his usual thoroughness.

It was Chapman also who first demonstrated the difference between the androconia of the earlier and later seasonal forms of various species of Lycoenida3; a similar difference, however, had already been noticed in another sub-family of Lepidoptera. Though the greater part of his work since his retirement was devoted to the Lepidoptera, miuch attention was paid by him in earlier years to British insects of other orders, notably the Coleoptera, Hymenoptera and Diptera. The same qualities of keen observa- tion, concentration and reasoning power characterised his earlier as wvell as his later period of entomological activity. His experience as Medical Officer at the asylums of Abergavenny and Hereford also bore fruiit in valuable papers contributed to the 'Journal of Mental Science.'

Chapman was several times Vice-President of the Entomological Society of London, but, to the regret of his friends, could never be prevailed upon to accept the office of President. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1918. A period of ill-health, which lasted for about two years, terminated in his death on December 17, 1921.

A leading feature of Chapman's character was his entire freedom from self-seeking or self-advertisemeent in any fornm. In his private capacity he was a pleasant, lhumorous and genial companion. His shrewd and kindly personality is grievously miissed by a largae circle of friends.

The portrait is reproduced by the kind permission of the editors of the 'Entomologist's Monthly Magazine.'

F. A. D.

VOL. XCIV.-B. c

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 37: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

xxxii

ALEXANDER MACALISTER, 1-844-1i91-9.

ALEXANDER MACALISTER was borin in Dublin on April 9, 1844. He was the second son of Robert Macalister, of Paisley, who had crossed St. George's Channiel to take up the position of Secretary to the Sunday School Society of Ireland in succession to Will Carleton, the Irish novelist. His mother was the youngest daughter of Colonel Jaimes Boyle, of Dungiven, who corm- manded the Limavady battalion in the voluniteer force which was raised in Ulster in 1779 to defend their country from the depredationis of Paul Jones, the pirate.

Robert Macalister, blessed with a large family and a slender puirse, destined his son, Alexande.r, for a businiess calling. But the boy's interest in botany attracted the attenitioni of the Curator of tlhe Glasnevin Botaniec Gardens, who persuiaded Robert Macalister to allow his son to study science. At the early age of fourteen Alexander became a medical student at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, and two years later he was appointed Demonstrator of Anatonmy there. When onily seventeen years of age he becanme qualified to practice maedicine and surgery, and obtained the diplomas L.R.C.S.I. and L.K.Q.C.P.T.

To a youth of Macalister's telmperamnent and upbringinlg there could have been no more fateful timne for the inaug-Lration of his life's work as an anatomist thani the year 1860. A few months before he began to teaclh anatomy Charles Darwin's " Origin of Species" -was published, and the attitude he was to adopt toward the fundamental principles of the subject h-e was teaching and investigating was shaped during the decade when these questions were being acrimoniously debated. Moreover, the branch of anatomy which he chose as the field for his researches was the one that provided the most striking evidence of the retention of vestigial structures, and therefore his particular domnaiin became an important part of the intel- lectual battlefield of the sixties. During, this critical period Macalister's writings reveal nio trace of the stornm that wvas raging in the world of biologsy, nior any suggestion of such a mental conflict as Mr. Edmund Gosse has so ruthlessly depicted in the case of his father. But in 1871 he publishecl a long review of Darwin's "Descent of Man," which sheds somne light upon what must have beeni passing through his muind during the previous tent years. For it gives us the formula he had adopted as the solution of the conflict between the results of his investigations and the influence of his upbringing in the home of Robert Macalister of the Sunday School Society.

Much, however, had happened before he was called upon to proclaim his attitude towards the mnomentous problerm. Between 1861 and 1867 Macalister was teaching anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeon-s in Dutblin. There he acquired his marvellous skill as a dissector, and laid the foundation of that mleticulously exact knowledge of the human body and the literature, ancient and modern, relating to it, wlhich for half a centuiry

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 38: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Alexander Maccalister. xxxiii

afterward was a source of wonder to every aniatomist and student who camne into touch with him. But while he was storing up this vast knowledge of the facts of human structure, he was also dissectinig all kinds of animals that died in the Dublin Zoological Gardens, and making detailed notes of their myology for future use. In the course of this work he collected the invertebrate parasites in the bodies of the animals he was dissecting, and his earliest writings were minute descriptions of the anatomy of certain worms and ticks.

This work, however, did not represent the whole of his activities. For he was ani Assistant Surgeon at the Adelaide Hospital, Honorary Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Dublin Society, anid one of the Secretaries of the Royal Geological Society of Ireland, of which he became the President some years later (1873).

In 1866 he married Elizabeth, the daughter of Mr. James Stewart, of Perth, and this important event in his life seems to have aroused in him new ambitions, and an even more strenuous devotion to research. For several years his interest in comparative anatomy had brought him into association with the Reverend Samuel Haughton, M.D., Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, who was investigating the problems of animal mechanics, and had secured the control of the supplies of vertebrate material which Macalister needed for his owin work. The friendship with Haughton ripened into an ardent discipleship, and exerted a far-reaching influence upon Macalister's career. It opened to him something more than the portals of the University of Dublin, for it determined the character of his work and played a large part in shaping, his outlook. The intimate associa- tion with a scholar whose interests ranged from anatomy to theology, and from mechanics to semitic philology, stirred a sympathetic chord in his youthful collaborator, who was already an anatomist and a surgeon, a zoologist and geologist, with a partiality for palaeography and theology. Is it any wonder, then, that Macalister succumbed to the characteristic fashion of Trinity College, .I)ublin, and developed a craving for encyclopaedic knowledge ?

The year after his marriage he entered Trinity College as an under- graduate, without abandoning the full programme of work to which his position as Demonstrator of Anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons committed him. But this was only for two years, for while still an under- graduate at the University of Dublin, and only twenty-five years of age, he was appointed Professor of Zoology there, and severed his conniection with the Royal College of Surgeons. When he came to sit for his degree examinlation he could not be a candidate for Honours, because he would have been ex oft;ieo his own examiner! In 1871 he proceeded to the M.B. degree, and the College created a Chair of Comparative Anatomy for him, which he held along with that of Zoology. Five years later he was appointed Professor of Anatomy and Chirurgery and Surgeon to Sir Patrick Dunn's Hospital, and after holding these offices for six years he became

2

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 39: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

xxxiv Obttuary Notices of Fellows deceased.

Professor of Anatomy in Cambridge and joined St. John's College as a Fellow.

The years which Macalister spent at Triniity College, DubliD, represent the period of his greatest activity as an anatomist. Even before he entered Trinity College he had published such miiemoirs as " Remarks on Congenital and Other Abnormalities in the Skeleton of the Upper Extremity" ('The Medical Press and Circular,' 1867) and "On the Hoinologies of the Flexor Muscles of the Vertebrate Lilub"' ('Journal of Anatomy and Physiology,' vol. 1), which reveal a wealth of accurate observation, an exceptionally wide and exact knowledge of the literature, anid a breadth of view that is remark- able in so youthful a writer. Even when he was combining the duties of a Demonstrator of Anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons, and a surg,eon at the Adelaide Hospital, with those of anl undergraduate at Trinity College, he was able to find time to write such important memoirs as "Contribuitionis toward the Formation of a Correct Systemn of Muscular Homologies" ('Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' 1868), and " Notes on the Homologies aind Comparative Anatomy of the Atlas and Axis" ('Journal of Anatomy and Physiology,' 1868). He published a remnarkable series of minute descriptionls of the muscles of different mammals, the most important of which is the memoir on " The Myology of the Cheiroptera " commiunicated to the Royal Society in 1872. In view of the fact that years afterwards the credit for the method was claimed by others, who in 1872 had niot begun their work as aniatomists, it is interesting to quote Macalister's statement (' Proc. Roy. Soc.,' p. 131, 1872):-" The author regards it as a point of very great importance that he has been able to apply the test of nerve-supply in the identification of some disputed muscles. Thus he has shown that the upper part at least of the occipito-pollicalis is of the nature of the trapezius, although its conitinua- tion is a cutaneous muscle; anid this is interestinig, as in the other flyiilg mammals the entire of this muscle is cutaneous and sprinlgs from the upper part of the platysma; he has also been able to show that the abdomiinal pectoral is not part of the pectoralis minor."

But at the same period of his career Macalister wrote two articles which shed more light upon his own personality and attitude towards the great problems of biology than anythinig he published at any other time. These were "A Review of Recent Works on Life and Organisation" (1870), and a critical study of Charles Darwin's "The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex" (1871), both published in the 'I ublin Quarterly Jourlnal of Medical Science.' These articles reveal the fact that Macalister had been impelled to define his orientation in the stormy world of biological speculation and had devised a formiula which made it possible for him to preserve intact his theological beliefs without sacrificing or appearing to sacrifice his scientific freedom. In his statements there is no trace of the excitement which impelled maniy of his contemporaries to make r ash and intemperate utterances. Macalister was too well acquainted with the facts of the matter and too serious ancd conscientious an anatomist to deny that the case for the derivation of

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 40: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Alexander Macaldister. xxxv

mian's structure from that of an ape had been established; but he made a conmpromise between the results of his early religious training anld his scientific experience by adopting what he called " the mixed evolution theory " -" that man consists of two parts which have had separate originals, a body evolved from a pre-existing form by the actioni of natural forces, and a soul a special creation bestowed upon him directly by the Creator."

Insistaince has been inade on these matters not merely because they afford the key to Macalister's career as an anatomist, but also because they shed some light upon the remarkable fact that British anatomy entered uponl a period of profound stagnation at the time when, under the influence of Sir Michael Foster, physiology displayed such phenomenal. vitality. It is clear to those who were initimately associated with him in his anatomical work that Macalister's attitude towaards the problems of the subject was one of restrainit, as though he were conitinually repressing a lnatural tendency frankly to probe the real mean-in(g of thinigs, but was held back by the formula he had adopted as the guiding principle of his life.

His wanling interest in the problemns of auiatomy was perhaps one of the reasonis why he plunged more deeply than ever into the mere collection of anatomiiical facts and the cultivation of other fields of intellectual activity. For the vast production of anatomical observations represents only a part of his work in the seventies. He was 1'residerit of the Royal Geological Society of Ireland in 1873; he lectured at the Alexandra College in Botany, Geology, Astronomy and in fact all science; his writings at this period contain quota- tions from the Greek and Latini writers and the Early Fathers, and references to Hebrew and Egyptian literature and archaeology. The precision of his knowledge of these exotic hobbies is revealed by the fact that he is said to have discovered in Dublin a stone bearing aln ancient Egyptian inscription which be identified as part of a monument that was in a Vienina Museum.

A few years before Macalister entered Trinity College an interest in Egyptology had been awakened in Dublin anid the resources of the College library had been revealed by Mr. (afterwards Sir Peter) Le Page Renlouf, who had been induced by Newman, his fellow tractarian at Oxford, to help him in building up the Catholic University in Dublin. At the time when Macalister was beginning his career as a teacher in Dublin, ilenouf, who stayed on for a short time after Newman had abandoned the Catholic University, was finding in Egyptology some relief from the disappointmenit of his hopes, anid Newman's, in the prospects of the new University in Dublin. His devotion to relig,ion had made Macalister interested in everything relating to Palestine and Egypt; aild he eagerly seized the opportunity which his connection with Triinity College afforded hiin of plunging into the study of the Egyptian language. For the rest of his life this was one of his chief hobbies, to the cultivation of which he devoted much time and labour.

In spite of these manifold duties and diversions, Macalister foulid time to write two books, each of them packed with a vast accumulation of facts, garnered from a very wide field of observation and readilng and compressed

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 41: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

xxxvi Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased.

into very small compass. His ' Introduction to Animal Morphology anid Systeniatic Zoology, Part I, Invertebrata,' was published in 1876, and two years later 'An Initroduction to the Systematic Zoology and Morphology of Vertebrate Animals.'

Reviewing the latter book, in 1879, the I Athenaeum ' complained that " the eniormous stores of facts are presented to the reader one after another as a series of separate statements, but unconnected together by any theory per- vading the whole. . . . It is impossible for students to assimilate facts unless they are made, in some manner, very definitely dependent on one aniother." This criticism seizes upon the characteristic feature of Macalister's work, and being a paraphrase of his own statements, is a not unjust conmmentary. Thus, in his memoir (1872) on the muscular system of the Bats, the most important of his contributions to the particular branch of anatomy of which he had made himself an authority, he adds this distinctive comment:

" The author has, for purposes of brevity, carefully abstained from adding anything of theoretical deduction to this paper, which he has endeavoured to confine to a sirnple statement of anatomical facts." But that this evasion of the real purpose of a scientific research was not really due to " purposes of brevity" is revealed by the whole story of Macalister's life. From 1871 onwards Macalister was conistantly warning his readers and hearers of the " dangers of hasty theorising," as he expressed it, when in fact and practice he was really discouraging every use of the scientific imagination. Writing in 1871, he says: " I think we should nlot condemln all theory. Under proper regulation a hypothesis is a most valuable aicd in our studyingc and grouping of facts;" but those who read his review of Darwin's 'Descent of Mani' will appreciate to what extelnt the phrase " under proper regulation " involved the crippling, of real investigation.

Macalister's career as an anatomist coincides alnmost exactly with the period during which the discussion of fossil remains of man has been going on. For sueh discussions began with the discovery of the Neanderthal skull, four years before he became a teacher of anatomy. As one who, from 1883 onwards, devoted special attention to the skull and its variations, one might have expected Macalister to have entered the fray, and, out of the abundance of his knowledge and experience, to have contributed something toward the solution of these difficult problems. But he remained mute. The investigation of frag,ments of fossil skulls was a hazardous enterprise for one who had made the compact of 1871 and who had foresworn theorising. He went to Cambridge in 1883, when Francis Balfour and his new school of embryology were on the crest of the wave of enthusiasm. But Macalister did not introduce the practical study of embryology in his department or make any provisioni for research in the subject, which was being developed elsewhere by ardent disciples of Darwin's with the saniguine expectation of finding, in the facts revealed by embryology a recapitulation of phylogeny. These hopes were sufficient to damp any enthusiasm that Macalister might otherwise have

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 42: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Alexander Macalister. xxxvii

displayed in human palaeontology and embryology, anid he left them severely alone as subjects for inivestig,ation, though he used the facts relating to the development of the human body in a formal way in his teachinlg. The influence of the keen interest in embryology that was displayed in Cambridge in the eighties of last century is reflected in Macalister's 'Text-book of Human iAnatomy' (1889), which is re.markable for the mass of exact know- ledge lucidly expouinded in so small a comnpass. The book exerted a profound influence upon teachers of anatomy in this country, and especially in stimula- tilng ani interest in morphology.

After Macalister became definitely established as a Professor in the IJniversity of Dublin, there had been a definite waning of his interest in the mechanical problemns of muscle, to which Samuel Haughtoni was so devoted; and the more strictly morphological aspect of myology became the chief ainii of his investigations. Thus he became the clisciple of Mr. (afterwards Sir George) Humphry, then Professor of Anatomy in Cambridge, and was marked out as his eventual successor. In 1883 Humphry made way for Macalister by resigning his Chair of Anatomy and becoming Professor of Surgery, a Chair that was createcl to render this re-shuffle of positions possible.

Two years before he left Dublin, Macalister was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, and the year after his move to Camibridge he served on the Council. The move to Cambridge was something more thani a mere geographical translation, for it brought to a close the puiblication of that remarkable series of original observations in myology which represent Macalister's principal achievementu in Aniatomy. Several circumstances were responsible for this surprising, result of his adoption of Humphry's mnantle. Fromi the beginning of his professionial career Macalister had been inlterested in both muscles and bones; buLt the exceptional opportunities that Dublini and his associationi with Haughton afforded himil for work in milyology seenil to have determined his preference for that department of Anatomy. But when he went to Cambridge, where there was no zoological garden to provide himii with the material for bis clhosen subject, he found in his new departmeent a great osteological collection, which provided him with the opportunity for cultivating his second interest in Anlatomy. The year after his appointmnent to Cambridge he published a characteristic monograph on perhaps the most iinsignificant bone in the human skeleton-the lachrymal, which is almost the last original contributioni h0e made to anatomical literature. B:1ut from 1884 until the close of his career he continued to make observations upon the variations of the skeleton, though practically none of the data, so laboriously collected and meticulously recorded in note-books, has been published.

But another reason for the cessation of the publication of the results of his unceasing garnering of facts in Anatomy is found in the fact that Cambridge provided him with ampler opportunities for the cultivation of his hobbies, Egyptian archbeology and philology, and his real interest in life, the Presbyterian Church, than he had enjoyed before.

The year after he went to Cambridge he published his work on the

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 43: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

xxxviii Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased.

lachryrnal bone, and summed up the genieral results of h-iis life's work in myology in the Boyle Lecture at Oxford. But two years afterwards he was lecturinig at the Royal Institution on the aniatonmical and muedical knowledge of ancient Egypt, dealing with the matter from the purely philological side; anid, in 1887, he was publishing tranislations of hiero- glyphic iinscriptions in the Fitzwilliarn M-useum. His enthusiasm for this hobby was slhown by the fact that he was able to inspire in. others a keen interest in a rather unattmactive and forbidding subject. On one occasion he delivered a lecture oni the Egyptian language to the boys at Charterhouse, and the imagination of onie of his hearers was so stirred that he decided to becomie a philologist, and is now the leading authority on the ancient Egyptian laniguage in this country.

Macalister's interest in the variations of bones found expressioln in the study of the great collection of human. remains which lhe found in his departmirent at Camlbridge; and, not unnaturally, he was thus led to devote more attenition to the study of anthropology and the cognate subjects, ancient history and archTeology. But though he spernt much tinie in collecting anthropometric data he published very little of the results of all his labour. It is true he delivered interesting Presidential Addresses to Section H. of the British Association (1892), anid to the Anthropological Instituite (1894); but their tendency could lhardly be called constructive. In fact, no nmiore caustic or incisive criticism of the futility of the metlhods of anthropometry then in use, eveln in his own school, has been made than the strictures of his 1892 address. To those who are familiar with Macalister's own mnethods and teaching, as displayed in his own depart- ment, his public castigation of them at Edinburgh in 1892 is perhaps one of the most amazing, buit truly characteristic, of his public utterances.-

" Of all the parts of the human framiie, the skull is that upon which anthropologists have in the past expended mrost of their time and thouglht. We have niow, in Great Britain alone, at least four collections of skulls, each of which ilncludes more than a thousand specimens, and in the other great national university museums of Europe there are large collections available for study and coinparison.

" Despite all the labour that has beenl bestowed oni the subject, craniometric literature is at present as unsatisfactory as it is dull. Hitherto observations have beeni concentrated on cranial measurements as methods for the dis- crimination of the skulls of differenit races. Scores of linies, arcs, chords, anid indexes have been devised for this purpose, and the diagnosis of skulls has been attempted by a process as mechanical as that whereby we identify certain issues of postage-stamps by counting the nicks in the margin. But there is underlying all these no unifying hypothesis, so that when we, in our sesqui- pedalian jargon, describe an Australian skull as microcephalic, phoenozygous, tapeino - dolichocephalic, prognathic, platyrhine, hypselopalatine, lepto- staphyline, dolichuranic, chamaeprosopic, and microseme, we are no nearer to the formulation of any philosophic concept of the general principles

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 44: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Alexander MVacalister. xxxix

which have 1ed to the assumnption of these chiaracters by the cranitum in question, and we are forced to echo the apostrophe of Von Torok, 'Vanity, thy nanme is Craniology.'

This quotationi is a truie reflectioni of Macalister's attitude toward not only antlhropology but also toward all anatomical investigation.

A gentle, generous and indulgent iman, he was always ready to help anyone who asked his advice with informnatioin and material, but he could niever resist the temptation of exhibiting the accuracy of his amiiazingl memory of anatomical facts, and with genial irony pouring ridicule oni any and every theory. No one who remembers his Presidency of the Anatomical Society is likely to forget the imnpromptu references to anatomical literature with which he overwhelmed youthfutl investigators. Indulgence of the samne foible discouraged many aspirants to anatom-ical fame in his own departmllent in Canmbridge.

Macalister's chief interest in life was displayed in the part he took in the establislhment of a Presbyterian Church in Cambridge, and the transference of the Westminster Theological College to Cambridge. Hie wrote a good deal on theological and historical subjects and he took a lively interest in missionary work. It was at his sugogestion that Lord Cromiier, in 1900, established the Professorship of Anatomy in the Egyptian Governmnent School of Medicine in Cairo.

During his closing years Macalister devoted much of his time and energy to the difficult and exacting task of editing, the 'Journal of Anatonmy anid Physiology,' and toward the end of his tenure of the editorship the words 'and Physiology ' were dropped from the title. During the whole of his career as a teacher Macalister used to spend mnost of his time in the dissecting room; and the meinory of hirn that will persist in the minds of many hundreds of students is of a singularly gentle, but " terribly learned " (the phrase is Sir George Humphry's) man, whose skill with the knife was equalled by a stra:nge combiniation of modesty and pride in his amnazing feats of nemory.

Apart from the restraint displayed in his attitude toward the problems of biology, which puzzled those who first discussed such subjects with hinm, Macalister was a man of ready accessibility ancd of singular charm of character. His einergy and powers of physical endurance were quite exceptionlal, and he enjoyed robust health until the winiter of 1917-18, when he suffered severely fromi influenza, and again in February, 1919. He insisted on resuming work after his somewhat protracted convalescenlce, and in the Easter vacatioil wenlt to visit hiis son in Dublin, where he was stricken with the illness which was destined to be fatal. He was brought back to Cambridge with great difficulty, but hie survived until September 2, 1919. He was buried in Cambridge ill the grave of his wife, whose death in 1901 had so keenly afflicted him that, for a time, lhe talked freely of resigning his Chair.

(A. E. S.

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 45: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

WILLIAM GOWLAND, 1842-1922.

WILLIAM GOWLAND was born in Sunderland on December 16, 1842, the son of George Thomiipson anid Catherine Gowland. Originally intended for the nmedical professioni, he worked with a doctor at Sheffield for two or three years. Purely scientific pursuits, h-iowever, attracted his attention, and in 1868 he becam:ie a stuLdent at the Royal College of Chemistry. In the succeeding two years he secured the Associateship in Mining and Metallurgy at the R1oyal School of Mines and was awarded the Murchison Medal in Geology and the De la Beche Medal in Mining.

During 1870-2 he obtained employment as chemnist and metalluirgist to tlle Broughton Copper Company, Manchester. In 1872 he went to Japan and for several years he worked as chemist and metallurgist to the Iniperial Mint at Osaka. In 1878 he became assayer and chief of the foreign staff anld adviser to the Imperial Arsenal. During this time he made several expeditions into the mountains besides a journey through Korea, where lie carried on work for the Japanese Governnment. Onl his return to England, in 1889, he received the order of the Rising Sun, with which he was personally invested by the Emperor of Japan. In 1890 he returned to the Broughton Copper Comlpany as chief mnetallurgist.

In the same year he married Joanna, youingest daughter of the late Murdoch Macaulay, J.P., of Linchader, Isle of Lewis. She died in 1909.

In 1894 he undertook the duties of Examiner in Metallurgy to the Board of Education at the same time that he acted as External Examiner to the Royal School of Mines. In 1902 Sir William Roberts-Austen, Professor of Metallurgy in the Royal School of Mines, died and Gowland was appointed his successor. It was a most fortunate circumstance that Gowland was available for the vacant post, as lie brought to the school his very broad practical experience acquired in Japan as well as this country. He at once began to introduce modern methods of exanlining steel, especially the use of tlle mnicroscope. A very genial colleague, he became iimmediately very popular both with staff and students. Unfortunately, the Civil Service age rule compelled his retiremeiit in 1909. He was, however, invited by the Goveriiors to return in 1913.

In 1910 he married Maude Margaret, eldest daughter of the late D. J. Connacher, who, with one daughter of his first wife, sturvives him.

Gowland wrote frequently on metallurgical subjects, but chiefly in connec- tionl with his observations in Japan. His first paper recorded in the Royal Society Catalogu-e appeared in the 'Chemical News' (1891), on '" Native Copper from Yunnani, China." In the 'Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry' (vol. 13, pp. 463-470) there is a paper on " A Japanese pseudo- Speise (Shirome) and its Relation to the Purity of Japanese Copper and the Presence of Arsenic in Japailese Bronze." Another (vol. 15, pp. 404-413, 1896) is entitled " Japanese Metallurgy. Part I.-Gold and Silver and their

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 46: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 47: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Wtilli'am Gowlatncl. xli

Alloys." Other papers occur in the' Smithsonian Report' (pp. 609-661, 1.894), "On the Art of Casting Bronze in Japan," and in the 'Jourtnal of the Chenirical Society' (vol. 51, pp. 410-416, 1887), " On Silver containing Bismulth."

Bnt Gowland was not only a metallurgist, he was miore especially an ardent and enthusiastic antiquarian, and his contributions to 'Archaologia' and to the 'Proceedings of the Society of Anitiquaries' and the 'Journal of the Anthropological Institute' were all of great interest and importance.

The following is believed to be a coinplete list of these publications:

From Archceologia-

Vol. 55, pp. 439-524, 1897. "The Dolmiienis and Burial AMounds ill Japan."

Vol. 56, pp. 13-20, 1899. "Analysis of Metal Vessels foundil at A\pple-

slhaw, Hants, and of some other Specim-iens of Rornan lewter." Vol. 56, pp. 267-322, 1899. "The Early Metallurgy of Copper, Tiln, anid

Iron in Europe, as illustrated by Anciernt Remains, and the Primitive Processes surviving in Japani."

Vol. 57, pp. 113-124, 1900. " Remains of a Ronlan Silver Refinery at Silchester."

Vol. 57, pp. 359-422, 1901. "T'he Early Metallurgy of Silver and Lead. Part 1.-Lead."

Vol. 58, pp. 37-105, 1902. "Recent Excavatioins at Stoneheige.." Vol. 69, pp. 121-160, 1918. " Silver: in Roman anid Earlici: Times.

P'art I.-Pre-historic and Pioto-historiel Times."

'From the 'Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries'-

(2) Vol. 16, pp. 330-334, 1897. " Onl thle Comnposition of Brolnze, Copper', etc., in the Hoards found at Grays Thurrock, andcl Southall, and on Experi- nments on the Manufactture of Ancient Bronze."

(2) Vol. 20, pp. 194, 1905. " Note orL Iron Bars used as Currency." (2) Vol. 20, pp. 242-245, 1905. " On sone Crucibles froin RIihodesia." (2) Vol. 21, pp. 20--21, 1905. "Note onl Leaden Grave Crosses founld in

London."

-Repvort of the Resear-ch Committee of the Society of Antiquaries- No. O. Excavations at Hlengistbury Hlead, Hamilpshire, in 1911-12.

Appendix II (By Prof. W. Gowland). "Report on3 the Metals and Metal- lurgical R',emains fromn the Excavations at HenigistbLLry Head." Pp. 72-83.

Jo,urnal of the Anthbropological Institute. Vol. 24, pp. 316-330, 1895. "Notes oIn the Dolimiens and other Anlti-

quities of Korea." Vol. 36, pp. 11-38, 1906. " Copper and its Alloys inl Prehistoric Times." Vol. 37, pp. 10-46, 1907. "The Burial Mounds and Dolmens of the

early Emperors of Japan." Vol. 42, pp. 235-287, 1912. "The Metals in Antiquity."

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 48: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

xlii Obituaary Notices oj Fellows deceased.

The first May lecture clelivered (1910) before the Inistitute of Metals on "The Art of Working Metals in Japani; " Presidential Address to the Institute of Metals (1912) on " Copper and its Alloys in Early Timies; " " Recent Excava- tions at Stonehenge," con-iiiiuiiicated to the Society of Anltiquaries in 1901, containis an account of explorations undertaken by a conmmittee appointed jointly by the Society of Antiquaries, the Wiltslhire Arekheological Society, and the Society for the Protection of Ancient BuLildings, who appoinlted Prof. Gowland as representative to coilduct the exploratory work. The niature and origin of the rock-fragmnents found in the excavations were reported on by Prof. J. W. Jtidd at Gowland's requiest.

Numerous stone axes and hamminers, stones probably of neolithic age, were found. In the surface layers were a few coins of Rtoman and muore recent date. Prof. JLudd camie to conclusions concerning the origin of Stonehenge fundamentally different from those wlhich had been generally accepted. In view of the large accumulation of chips and fragments of the Sarsen and " blue stoines" of the maoniolith iinmmediately upon the site of the circle, and fronm other conisiderations, he was led to believe that the stones were not brought from a distance, but were originally "gurey wethers" lying on the surface of the chalk downs, and that the stoones were selected at rno great distance from the spot where the structure stands, anid were trimnmed at the spots where they were found. His own words as to this conclusion are as follows: " I would therefore suggest as probable that when the early inhabitants of this island commelnced the erection of Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain was sprinkled over thickly with the great white masses of the Sarsen stones (grey wethers) and much inore sparingly with the darker coloured boulders (the so-called, 'bluestones '), the last relies of the glacial drift, which had been nearly deniucled away. Fromn these two kinds of materials the stones suitable for tbe conitemplated temple were selected. It is even possible that the abund- ance anid association of these two kinids of materials, so strikingly contrasted in colour and appearance, at a particular spot, may not only have decided the size, but to sonme extent lhave suggested the architectural features of tlle noble structure of Stonehenge."

Gowland was always actively interested in the history and application of mnetals, and naturally his long, resideinee in Japan afforded m-any opportunities of enquiring into the early methods emnployed in that country. These were described in the mnany inlteresting and inistructive papers and addresses he has left belhind, and of which a list has been given.

He was an active member of many Societies, amiongc the rest the Society of Antiquaries, the Chemical Society, of which he became a Fellow in 1871, the Institute of Chemistry, the Iron and Steel Institute, the Society of Chenmical Industry, the Royal Anthropological Institute, of which he became President in 1905-7, and of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, of which he was President 1907-8, as also of the Institute of Metals in 1912. He was elected into the Rloyal Society in 1903, anid served on the Counicil in 1912-14.

As a young nman Gowland was very fond of rowing, and he was the first to

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 49: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

1,F

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 50: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Sir Patrick Manson, xliii

introduce the sport into Japan. In order to encourage boat racing amllong the Staff at the Mint he bad two modern " eights " built, but the Japanese found them too unstable and preferred two of their own boats which they presented for Prof. Gowlaiid's inspection. To his astonishment lhe found that they had selected a pair of cutters, and had fitted them with port and starboard lights !

Since November, 1921, Gowland's health began to fail, but he was still able to work at the fourth edition of his book on the " Metallurgy of the Non-Ferrouis Metals." His illniess, however, took gradually a more serious turn, and on Whit Siunday he became suddenly paralysed and passed away on June 10.

W. A. T.

SIR PATRICK MANSON, 1844-1922.

To a multitude of medical friends in all parts of the world Sir Patrick Manson, whose death occurred on the 9th April, will always be remembered as a man who, while giving brilliant and effective play to a sane scientific imagination never throughout a long career lost touch of the humnane and practical ends of his profession. Beginning with what, by modern standards, was an extremely modest academic equipment, and working for years in professional isolation amlid all the obstructions of a general medical practice in a climate unhealthy for Europeans, he mlade discoveries that have opened up anl entirely new field of pathogenesis, and have changed our conceptiolns of what is commonly termed tropical disease. Such achievement could have been accomplished only by a man endowed with extraordinary insight, aniimated by a constant hioh purpose, and possessing, enormous power of work.

Patrick Manson was born at Old Meldrum, in Aberdeenshire, in the year 1844. His mother, to whom he beyond all her other sons is said to have had a strongf mental resemblance, seenis to have been a woman of remarkable character; besides physical streng,th and beauty, a buoyant spirit, a large heart, and much capacity of resource in difficulties, she is said to have possessed notable artistic talelnt, composing her owni harmonies in nlusic and making her own desigins in embroidery.

As a boy at Aberdeen Schools, Manson is said to have excelled only at cricket, and to have been to the pedagogue-eye dull, though the master who dealt with English literature and the tutor who conducted the evening " prep" in the family both thought well of himil. His earliest inclinations of a more serious kind than cricket were to natural history; but later on he developed a taste for machinery and showed such practical aptitude for mechanics that he was sent to study for an engineer at the works of his mother's relatives, the Messrs. Blaikie, in Aberdeen. Here, in his anxiety to show that he claimed no privileges, and was as good a miian with his hands as his hunmbler fellows, he so injured his spine that he had to be made over to the doctors. During the many weeks that he was kept supine he pondered upon the nature and

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 51: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

xliv Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased.

consequences of his misfortune, and resolved to become a doctor himself; and when at last he was allowed to get up for a few hours daily he began his preliminary studies in botany and zoology at his native University of Aberdeen.

In Scotland in those days, outside the business of clothing the naked intellect, the University and the individual student went their own ways, and the only record we can find of Manson. in the University is the entry in the Minutes that he was admitted to the degree of M.B. in 1865. He had then attained the statutory age of 21, having passed the qualifying examina- tion the year before.

Having obtained his degree, Manson, following the example of an elder brother, betook h-imself to the Far East, and settled in Fornmosa, where he seems to have applied himself mailnly to buildilng up a practice and to paying back all the debt that had been incurred in his professional education. In 1871, having become innocently entangled in Formosan politics, he remnoved to Amoy, where in addition to a larger Europeani constitulency there was a nmissionary hospital that provided fine opportunities for work. Here he was greatly imnpressed by the prevalence of diseases due to filarial infection, the causation of which was, at that time, very imperfectly known, even inl its elements, and not at all understood in its principles.

Manson's first dealings with filarial disease were those of an ordinary surgeon contriving, relief for patients afflicted with certain very common tumours--tumours often of such prodigious size as to make work an impossi- bility and life a burdeni. As a surgeon, he proposed the operation of removal, an enterprise altogether too much for the native hue of resolution. At last there camie forward a man whose tumour had beconme so grievous as to have driven himin wilfully to seek his owIn salvation by swallowing arsenic. He, hearing of a white doctor whose promises seemed, at worst, to hold out a release from a weary life more effectual than arsenic, offered himself for experiment, saying that he had already made two attempts to kill himself and that death had no terrors for him. Fortunlately, the operation was an admirable success, and in the course of the next three years the candidates for operation were so numerous that more than a ton of superfluou.s elephantoid tunmour was removed fronm the afflicted population of Amoy.

After eight years abroad Mainson returned home for recreation, and then heard of the ininute nenmatode worms found by Demnarquay in the chylous fluid, and afterwards by Timothy Lewis, in the blood of persons suffering, from some of the other forms of filarial disease. Returning in 1876 to Amoy, now a married man, he found the worms to be common ini the blood of Chinamen there, and set himself to an investigation of their life-history, of which little more was klnown than that they were the embryos of ani undiscovered adult nematode, and that they did not grow or develop in the blood-streamn. He was hindered in his search for the adult worms by the antipathy of the Chinese to post-morltem investigations, and the first discovery of an adult wornm was made, about this time, by Bancroft, of Queelnsland, in

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 52: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Sir Patrick Manson. xlv

diseased lymphatic tissue; but concentrating hlis attention on the embryos- or microfilaria--he discovered, in infected persons in Amoy, that they were abundant in the superficial blood-vessels onily after sunset, and became scanty, or disappeared altogether fronm superficial reaclh during the day. It had already occurred to him that they mnight mnerely be passengers in the blood, seeking to escape from the human body, and that their escape was effected by the intermediationi of some bloodsucking insect, and lhe now surmised, from the circumstance that they were abundant in the sub- cutaneous blood only after sunset, that the intermediary insect also must be one that was active about the same time. Fixing his suspicions on a common house-mosquito of Anmoy, he made the necessary experiments, anld founid that his surmise was correct, and something more, for the insect was discovered not only to release the microfilarive from their imprisonment ill one human host and to lend them its wings for dispersal among others, buit also to provide them in its own tissues with -a nursery where they develope(d from embryos into well organised larvwn fit to attack the new prospective host at the right moment.

So far as his published accounts go, Manson did not follow his experiments further. Content with the current belief of that day, that mosquitoes expired when they went to water to extrude their eggs, he thought that the young filariae might be set free at the same time, and so might get to their final host by water. That he was not perfectly satisfied with this untested assumption is made evident by his old note-book, in which we find records of attenmpts to infect monkeys by feeding them oni material containing filariated mosquitoes. It was not until more than twenty years afterwards that better-equipped investigators were able to track the larval filarie into the insect's proboscis, and to discover that they made a tjimely escape when the proboscis was being brought into action on the skin of a humani victim. But Mansoin's discoveries went quite far enough to establish the fact that a female mosquito of some sort is an indispensable coadjutrix in the develop- ment of Bancroft's filaria, and thus to disclose a new and far-reaching principle of pathogeny, namely, the principle of the necessary intermediation of the bloodsucking insect as a causal factor in the sphere of disease.

Like many other original discoveries, this remarkable one of Manson's did not attract very much attentioni, although its author confirmed and clarified it by further experiments, showing that the filarike would not develop in all the species of mosquitoes existing in Amoy, or at all seasonis of the year in the particular species. It is doubtful whether even to-day the full penetra- tion of this remarkable discovery is generally recogniised by biologists.

All this work on the filaria parasite was, as it were, an interlude in the main argument of a heavy medical practice. Other minor interludes, which illustrate the alacrity of Manson's observation, if they did not happen to call forth the samne revelation of his intluition, were his discovery in the causal blood-stained expectoration of an impolite visitor, of the eggs of the lung- fluke, Paragonimus westermanii, a now notorious parasite of man in tlhe

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 53: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

xlvi Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased.

Japanese dominions; his detection, in the course of a surreptitious post 9nortem,, of a new species of Sparganztum in the human peritoneum; and his observations on a new species of Oxyspirutra parasitic in the eye of fowls. But that none of these side-plays diverted himn from the main purpose of his profession is evinced by his publications on the pathology and treatment of the diseases that confronted him in his hospital and private practice- particularly sprue, hepatic abscess, leprosy, pemphigus contagiosus, and the ringworm caused by tinea imbricata.

Whether he was investigating parasites or pathology, his note-books show that Manson also was a worlthy pioneer in laboratory device. Quite early in his studies of blood-parasites lhe hit upon a polychrome stain by mixing borax with methylene blue; anid in his earliest search for the leprosy bacillus he used a sittina hen as an incubator, and her eggs, inoculated with leprotic juice, as a culture mediium-a homely expedient which, like his conception of the mosquito as a " 'nurse " to the filaria larvae, illustrates his native humour and ingenuity.

In 1883 Mansoii left Amoy, and on returning to China after a recuperative year in Europe, he resumed work in Hong Kong, where among bis other professional activities he took a leading part in establishing a medical school for Chinamen, and became its first Dean.

Both in Amoy and in Hong Kong Manson is described as always working. In the mnorning, he did most of his private practice; in the afternoon he was busy till sunset in his hospital; and after dinner he continued his scientific investigations far into the night. But with all his zest for work he escaped monotony by periodic shooting-trips.

In 1889, partly for reasons of health, and also because he wished to be among his children, Manson finally left China for England. But though changing his sky he did not change his mind anid purpose, which was to devote his working time exclusively to the untroubled study of parasitology. Soon after his arrival in England, lhowever, the distracting collapse of the silver dollar necessitated a niodification of this rosy scheme, and, in 1890, he put on the wvhole harness again and started in London as a consulting physiciani in the field of tropical disease.

There for 23 years, as during 24 years in China, while never forgetting the welfare of his patients, he constantly held up the mirror to the pathological phenomena that he observed in his practice, his facilities being presently enlarged by his appointment to the staff of the Seamen's Hospital at Greenwich. During these years, besides bringing out a 'Manual of Tropical Diseases,' he made numerous perspicacious contributions to parasitology, among which may be specially mentioned those on the specific differentia- tion and pathogeny of the Schistosome blood-fluikes, on the filaria of Calabar Swellings, and on several other species of filarial blood parasites. He also confirmed Fedschenko's observations on the development of the larval guinea-worm in Cyclops. He kept a particularly critical eye on the malaria parasites, and, in 1894, he formulated the results of his iilvestiga-

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 54: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Sir Patrick Manson. xlvii

tions in a pregnant mnosquito-malaria theory, of wlhieh a full and just appreciation mlay be found in a paper contributed to 'Nature' of March 29, 1900, by the foremost authority on this subject, Sir Ronald IRoss.

The belief that malarial fevers are conveyed to man by mosquitoes is, of course, niot new. Some writers even recognize it- in the statement contained in the ninety-fifth chapter of the second book of 'Herodotus,' that the Egyptian fishermein of the marsh country slept under their fishing-nets as a protection against gnats. In the first half of the last century Beauperthuy surmised that it was not the air but the "Tipulids" of the marshes that made marshes malarious, and later in the century mosquito-malaria theories even more explicit were promnulgated by several distinguished authors, inieluding Laveran himself. Above all these theories Manson's had the peculiar value of being, a strictly logical argument having an essential base on the behaviour of the malaria parasites themselves, and, for a major premise, observed facts in the life history of another blood-parasite, nlamely, the Microfilarit bancrofti. His hypothesis was based oni the fact that the flagellar bodies of the malaria parasites-afterwards, through MacCallum's discoveries in the analogous case of Hcemoproteus, recognized as male gametes-appeared in malarial blood only after it had been shed, and on the legitimate inference therefrom that they, like microfilariae, were elemnents in an extra-corporeal existence of the parasites, and elements that required to be extricated and nourished by free-flying blood-sucking insects such as imosquitoes. As Ross has said-whose laborious and brilliant researches set the seal upon the argument-the hypothesis was sound at core, and actually led the way to the discovery (by Ross) of the extra-corporeal history of the malaria parasites, although the part played by the flagellar bodies was found not to be so simple and direct as Manson imagined.

The tale of Manson's services to tropical medicine is not told by his original. discoveries aloine; almnost equally worthy of recount are the improvements that they effected, and mainly by his own instrumentality, in the sphere of medical education. For, in his early days in China he had realised that the medical man in the tropics, professionally isolated, and practisilng amiong populations whose sanitary sense is dormant, ought to be practically familiar with many thinigs that in Western practice are left to the experts of pure science; and from those early days he had cherished the idea of post-graduate schools in Great Britain, where medical nmen electing for the tropics could fit themselves for the varied professional responsibilities and scientific oppor- tunities in prospect.

His appointmenit, under Joseph Chainberlain, as Medical Adviser to the Colonial Office, at the time when he had become an influence at the Seameni's Hospital, gave him his opportunity, and with this powerful support at his back he brought about the realisation of his great ideal. Gettinig togetlher at the Royal Albert Dock Hospital a band of mneni representing a varied experience of disease in its tropical aspects, lhe designed a course of study broadly and diversely based on the laboratory, but kept in concert with

VOL. XCIV.-B. d

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 55: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

xlviii Obituary, Notices of Fellows deceased.

professional aims in the lecture-room and the hospital wards, and tlhus, ill 1899, he opened the London School of Tropical Medicine to the nmedical profession. For thirteen years, a benign and pervading personality, anld as a teacher a magnetic attraction, Manson held up the school in his hands, esteemed by his colleagues for the breadth and the penetration of his scientific vision, by his students for his paternal accessibility and helpfulness, and by his hospital patients for his natural benevoleinec.

Until his retirement fromii professional life, in 1912, Manson continued to be a prodigious worker. His routine as a consultant began before 9 o'clock and occupied him till the mid-day deal; in the afternoon his engagements at hospital and school kept himi busy until near dinnier-time; after dinner and a game of whist or bridge he would go off to what he called his " muck-room and work there often till long after miidnight. His work mnight tire him and occasionally cause him dreadful headaches, but it was physic to his mind. He was not submerged in it, but was a genial conversational person,, with a mind wide open to impressions and reflections of many kinds. Almost every day he had visitors to luncheon, often medical men whom he would bring down to introduce to his colleagues at the School. He had a cottage in the country, whither he betook himself and his family every Saturday afternoon, and where he enjoyed the diversions of gardening, or carpentry, or croquet, the whole party returning to London early on Monday morning. Every autumn he went for a fortnight to his native hills and streams of Aberdeenshire for a little fishing and shooting; and when his gouty infirmities made walking toilsome he built himself a summer retreat on the banks of Lough Mask, where he could do his fishing from a boat, for he was a noted fisherman.

Academic and other honours, of course, canme to Manson; possibly the one most appreciated by his friends was that paid him at the International Medical Congress held in London in 1913, when he was presented with his portrait in medallion, and saluted as the " Father of Modern Tropical Medicine"; possibly the one best appreciated by himself was the portrait subscribed by his friends and admirers in all parts of the world, and presented to him just a short time before his death.

After his retirement, Manson alternated betweeni Lough Mask, in the summer, and Lolndon, where almost to the last moinent of his life he kept paternal watch over the School of Tropical Medicinie.

Happy in his home (" he was most awfully good to us," writes one of his daughters); greatly distinguished and successful in his career; absorbed througbout a long life in somrie of the most fascinating prospects of an interest- ing profession, yet appreciating sport and good literature and good comlpany; a lover (with a wonderful reciprocative influence) of childreni and ani;nals; and honoured to the end as an oracle in the school of his own creationl, Manson may be deemed, like Solon-'s Tellus, to have been one of the lhappiest of men.

A. W. A.

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 56: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

rAr.

I1 - , t

Q4-4t4y

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 57: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

xlix

CHARLES LOUIS ALPHONSE LAVERAN, 1845-1922.

CHARLES Louis ALPHONSE LAVERAN was the son of Dr. L. Laveran of the Service de Sant6 Militaire-himself a writer on malaria; and was born at Paris on June 18, 1845. Desiring to follow in his father's footsteps, he entered the Icole duL Service de Sant6 at Strasbourg in 1863; and he served during the Franco-Germian War of 1870 as M6'decin aide-major in the Army of Metz, and in 1874 was appointed professeur agregeg at the Val de Grace, of which school his father had beeln a director. On the ternlinationl of this appointment in 1878 he was sent to Algeria to take charge of a Service E l'H6pital at Bone.

For maniy years previously the French physicians in Algeria, especially F. C. Maillot, had done distinguished work on malaria, but without being able to ascertain either its precise cause or its methods of propagation. The profuse pigmnentation of the organs in this disease, particularly of the spleen, had, how ever, long been recognised. In 1847 H. Meckel had shown that the pigmenta- tion consisted of minute black granules which were to be found in cells in the blood; and subsequenitly Virchow, Frerichs and others had also found the granules in definite cells in the blood and tissues examined post mortem. They had recognised that these appearances were distinctive of malaria but had supposed that they were due to destruction of the blood by the marsh- miasma-a supposed poisonous gas. It was at this point that Laveran com- mences his studies in September, 1878, at Bone, a very malarious spot. He quickly verified the previous work, but fortunately thought of examiniing, not only dead tissues, buit also small drops of blood taken from living, patients, and placed at once, fresh and unstained, between a slide and a cover-glass under the microscope. This procedure (possibly used before by Planer) demonstrated that the pigment granules were seldom free in the serum but were usually con- tained within small clear cysts or cells of different sizes actually within or upon the red corpuscles; or in separate sausage-shaped. bodies (crescents); or in the white blood-corpuscles. From the first he suspected that the pigment- containing cysts or cells were living organisms and not degeneration-products; but it was not till November 6, 1880 at Constantine that he was convinced of this fact. He had previously observed that the sausage-shaped bodies often swell up anid became spherical under the microscope; and he now found one of these little spheres (still con:taining the characteristic pigment granules) with several long filaments attached to it actively lashing about in all directions and disturbing corpuscles and other objects in their vicinity. He thought that these filaments were flagella, and that the body to which they were attached was a motile organism inhabiting human blood in malarial diseases. He named the organismn Oscillaria rnalariao; communicated the discovery at once to the Academie de medecine (November 23 and 28, 1880), and later to the Academie des sciences (October 24, t881, anid October 23, 1882); demon- strated the bodies to his colleagues at Constantinie; and observed them in 432

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 58: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

1 Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased.

cases of malaria. His work was quickly confirnmed by Dr. E. Richard at Phillippeville; and in 1882 Laveran f-ouLnd the same organisms in malaria cases in Italy. In 1884 he pLLblished a full aecount of his observations in his

Traite des Fievres Palustres " (Octave Doin, Paris). Previous to this quite a niumber of organismns had beeii claimed to be the

cause of malaria-especially the Bacillus malarice of Tommasi-Crudeli and Klebs, which these observers erroneously thought they had found in 1879, which they said abounded in malarious places and caused intermittent fever, pigmentation of the organs, and enlargement of the spleen, when injected into animals. Hence Laveran's discovery was received with scepticism for many years, especially in Italy and Germany-though the mere fact that his bodies contain the characteristic pigmelnt was of itself almiost certaini proof of their connection with malaria, while the miere appearance of the so-called "flagellate body" almost established their parasitic nature. Another reason for the scepticism was that Laveran had not been able to work out the, exact life-history of the organisms in the human blood, owing to the fact, now recognised, that in Algeria all three kilnds of parasites abound, and the blood- picture there presented is often very confusing. The matter was, however, completely set at rest in 1886 and subsequently by C. Golgi, of Pavia, where only one of the species, the quartan parasite, was occurring. He was able to demonstrate that organism's mode of growth and reproduction in the blood, and to prove that the successive attacks of the specific quartan fever in the host are associated with the successive and approximately simiultaneous sportulations of the parasites in the blood. Moreover, in 1885 and sub- sequently, Danilewsky fouild closely allied parasites in the blood of several kinds of birds; and after 1887 Golgi and others discovered specific morpho- logical differences in the parasites which cause the three different classical types of malarial fever, the quartan, the tertialn and the malignant fevers. r'he Italians and others next nam-led these parasites respectively Plasnodinmt tmalarice, P. vivax, and P. falciparurm. These types have now been found in all mlalarious places, and their relation to the diseases caused by theml lhave been copiously worked out by hunidreds of observers, including Laveran. But lhe himself always remained sceptical as to the validity of the alleged specific differences, and held that there is only one species of human nalaria parasite, which he called Ilcemanwbceb malaria?.

In 1884 Laveran was transfe-rred back to the Val de Grace where he held the chair of Hygiene until 1894. In 1891 he reconstructed his book of 1884 under the title " Du Paludismie " (G. Masson, Paris), and subsequent editions under the niame "Trait6 du Paludisme" appeared in 1898 and 1907. In France, as elsewhere, the organisation for mnedical research is defective because arrangements are not always made for preserving men who have done first- class work from petty educational or routine duties in order to keep them emnployed upon the investigations which they of all men are most competent to conduct; and in 1897 Laveran retired for tllis reason from the Freneh military medical service anid entered the Institut Pasteur-where he

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 59: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Chvarles Louis Alphonse Laveran. i

remained for a quarter of a celntury uintil his death, devoted to the study of all kinds of unicellular parasites.

The problem as to where the P'lasmodiat live in external nature alnd how they enter human beinigs, received little attent-ion for more than ten years after Laveran's discovery. A few negative experimiientts, ineluding some made by him, tended to show that they do not exist free in the soil or water of malarious places; and in 1893-95, I wrote a series of papers criticising the accepted notions regarding the supposed marsh-miasma, on the ground that ilnfection does not vary inversely as the square of the distance from a focus of mnalaria as it should do by this hypothesis. Meantime, however, two lines of argumnent had been converging towards the proposition that the disease is connected in sonme way with the Cttlicidc. One argumlent-an epidemio- logical, one-dated back from very early timnes, btut was fully developed iln 1883 in America by Dr. A. F. A. King, who gave ninieteeni reasons for supposing that mosquitoes bring sonie contagMiu-m vivum from marshes and inoculate it into men by the bite. The other argument was based upon the parasitological law of alternating generationis or change of host which the great, Dutch and German parasitologists had developed in regard to the helminths or worms, apparently since 1790. Ifn 1858 Leuckairt and Fedschenko had shown that Filatriet medinensis (guinea-worin) of men develops in a Cyclops (water-flea), and in 1877 Patrick Maanson demonstrated a similar developmrlenlt for Fqletaria bancrofti in certain mosquitoes (probably Culex sp.)-though neither Fedschenko nor Manson completed the life-histories. Laveran was evidently affected by both arguments, and wrote in his book of 1884 (page 457), " Les moustiques jouent-ils un role dans le patthogntie du paludi.sme comnme dans celle de la filariose ? Lae chose n'est pas impossible, il est 'a noter qute les mnoustiques etbondent daets toutes les localites paetlstres." Nothing fturther happened, how- ever, until abouit November, 1894, when the same idea struck Manson but for a new reason (" British Medical Journal," 8 iDecemnber, 1904). The so-called " flagellate bo(lies " which Laveran had discovered fourteen years previously, and which be originally supposed to be mnotile fornms of the Plasmodita within the blood-circulation, had long vexed students because they were never to be found until at least ten inuirittes after the blood was drawn. Manson now discerned the reason for this fact and the object of these singular bodies- they are mneant to infect some suctorial insect. He mentioned the nmatter to miie at once, and I reininded him of Laveran's pronouncement of 1884. I think that neither he nor Laveran knew of King's paper of 1883. Manson thought that Laveran's so-called "flagella" were really flagellated spores which enter the tissues of mosquitoes, live in them for a time, and escape inlto the water on the surface of which mosquitoes are apt to die after laying their eggs-he thought that the insects live for only tlhree to five days. After that, he surmised, the Plasmodit live in water or on the ground, from which they inifect men by drinking-water or in the accepted mnarsh-miasmata. HIere he was both wrong and misleading. Laveran (who I think adopted Newtoin's priniciple hypotheses non lingo) fortunately did not elaborate his surmises at all.

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 60: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

lii Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased.

The so-called "flagellate bodies" were proved in 1897 to be notlhing of the kind, but to be the male sexual forms of the Plasmodia emitting their microgametes or sperms for the fertilisation of the female cells in the stomachi-cavity of miiosquitoes-by W. G. MacCallum following a lead by E. Metchnikoff and P. D. Simoiud. While the facts were being worked out by me in India fromi April, 1895, to February, 1899, and completed in Sierra Leone in August, 1899, I received constant encouragement in letters from Laveran who accepted my work in his reports to the Academie de medecine in 1899 and 1900. The resuLlt showed that mosquitoes do not carry the Plasmnodia frolmi the marsh to nmeni as King thought, nor from men to the marsh as Manson thought, but from man to man. At the same time, King was -right in surmising that the insects put the Plasmodia into meln, and Manson in supposing that they take it also out of men. Laveran, in his 'Traite du Paludisme' (1907, page 26), afterwards maintained that he had suipported this last conjecture; but in the edition of 1898, p. 125, he did not think it probable that mosquitoes inoculate mialaria directly from manl to man (my first conclusive results had lnot reached him then).

From that time, mostly in association with F. Mesnil, he carried out numerous researches on the trypanosomes of men and animals, resuilting in their valuable book, "Trypanosomies et Trypanosomiases" (Masson, Paris, 1904 and 1912). In 1903 he anid I simultaneously recognised as a new human parasite the bodies first seen and described by W. B. Leishman and then independently by C. T)onovan, and afterwards proved to be the cause of kala-azar. Laveran gave it its specific name after Donovan, anid I, its generic name after Leishman (see "British Medical Journal," November 28, 1903); and numerous allied organisms have been fouLnd since then, anld were all studied by Laverain at the Institut Pasteur, and described by himi in his " Traite de leishmanioses" (Masson, Paris, 1917). More recently he worked, chiefly with M. G. Franchini, on the flagellate parasites of insects, on spirochaetes of insects and plants, and oni many similar subjects. He died, working almost to the last, on May 18, 1922, aged seventy-seven years. In 1885 he had married Mlle S. M. Pidancet, near Metz, but had no children.

Laveraii's writings are a model both of clarity and of completeness. Almost all reliable workers and all observations of note are mentioned in thein; there is no redundancy; and every sentence is precise anid unambiguous. Besides his major works mentioned above, he issuLed a very large nunmber of shorter articles each dealig, with some point of importanice.

I had the privilege of callin-g upon hini a number of times at the Institut Pasteur, besides carrying on a very considerable correspondence with him. His manrner was like nis writings-to the point, exact, anid dec isive; and, he was, I believe, regarded with affection and admiration by all who came into contact with him.

Laveran's great cliscovery of 1880 was, of course, not connected in any way with the science of medical bacteriology-which had recently been founded by Pasteur, Lister, and Koch-but with the much older science of animal

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 61: Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased

Charles Louts Alphonse Laveran. liii

parasitology. At that timne many mnetazoal parasites were kinown and had been carefully studied, and a few protozoal parasites had also beeni found, buts mostly without being definitely connected with disease. The work of Laveran, therefore, connected as it was with suclh a widespread and importanit inalady as malaria, openied up a niew anid vast field in the study of parasitology and pathology, besides helping to inaugurate a new era in the practical salnitation of almost all tropical, and many temperate, counitries of the world.

He received many honours. In 1893 lie was elected member of the Academie de Medecinie, and P-resident of it in 1920. He was correspondent of the Acaderniie des Sciences in 1895, and Fellow of it in 1901. He received the Nobel AMedical Prize in 1907; was Comrnandeur de la Lecion d'honneur; a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1916; and an honorary member of a large numxiber of learned societies, especially those connected with para- sitology and tropical medicine.

A biography of him by Madame Docteur Marie Phisalix, entitled " Alphonse Laveran, sa vie et son ceuvre," will be published almost imminediately by Massoni et Cie., Paris.

R. R.

This content downloaded from 62.122.78.35 on Mon, 5 May 2014 04:22:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions


Recommended