FRANCIS G ALT ON 173 



ferentiate clearly preparation and life work. In some of our institu- 

 tions a man eager for research in any field must have his enthusiasm 

 smothered and his personal ingenuity choked down by all of the minor 

 requirements for the gilt seal of the university degree. Independent 

 of the university stamp Mr. Galton spent his youth using his eyes and 

 mind while working with the best men he could in hospitals and at 

 Cambridge, where owing to a serious breakdown in health he contented 

 himself with a poll degree instead of reading for mathematical honors. 

 Throughout life the discipline which made possible the next and greater 

 task yielded its own contribution to science. Days and nights in wards 

 demand keenness of observation. This and his early travels in Egypt 

 and Syria prepared hirn to be a scientific explorer instead of merely a 

 gentleman sportsman bagging big game in tropical Africa. His 

 fascinating book on Damara and Ovampo Land gave him the scientific 

 standing of a gold medalist of the Eoyal Geographical Society in 1853, 

 but his " Art of Travel " which grew naturally (for a man of Mr. 

 Gal ton's type of mind) out of his Syrian and African experience per- 

 haps counted for more in the advancement of geography. The one 

 contained its own quota of concrete facts; the other served to instruct 

 others in the art of exploration. First-hand experience with clinical 

 thermometers, practical use of sextants in the wilderness and early 

 experiments with a printing telegraph are good preparation for an 

 active part in the work of the standardization of instruments and of 

 the development of methods for the publication of meteorological data. 

 Human faculty and heredity are closely linked together, and from 

 heredity to eugenics is only a short step, and one forced upon the man 

 who goes deeply into the former. 



Some of the reminiscences of the period of training which have 

 been given us in the " Memories " are interesting even to those whose 

 lives go back to the early days of modern medicine. 



His life as indoor pupil in the Birmingham General Hospital began 



in the fall of 1858. 



The times of which I am speaking were long before those of chloroform, 

 and many years before that of Pasteur and Sir Joseph Lister. The stethoscope 

 was considered generally to be new-fangled; the older and naturally deaf prac- 

 titioners pooh-poohed and never used it. 



Once a powerful drayman was brought in dead drunk with both of 

 his legs crushed and mangled by a heavy wagon. 



They had to be amputated at once. He remained totally unconscious all the 

 time, and it was not until he awoke sober in the morning that he discovered that 

 his legs were gone. He recovered completely. The question that then presented 

 itself to me was, ' ' Why could not people be made dead drunk before operations ? 

 Could it be effected without upsetting their digestion and doing harm in other 

 ways?" The subsequent discovery of inhaling instead of drinking the intoxi- 

 cating spirit, whether it be chloroform or ether, solved that question most happily. 



