SKETCH OF DR. ARNOTT. 101 



ward to the Spanish embassy. In 1836 he became a member of the 

 Senate in the newly-founded University of London in 1837, one of 

 the physicians extraordinary to the queen, and in 1838 a member of 

 the Royal Society, and subsequently of the Geological Society. 



Dr. Arnott gave two courses of lectures at different times on the 

 relation of natural philosophy to medicine. These were afterward 

 embodied in his " Physics." In 1837 appeared his well-known " Essay 

 on Warming and Ventilation," and, by the practical application of 

 the theories contained in it, there resulted the stoves and ventilators 

 which bear his name. For these and other inventions, including the 

 water-bed, he obtained from the Royal Society the Rumford medal. 

 On account of the assistance which he rendered to the practice of 

 medicine, and to the general public health, he received, at the Paris 

 Exposition in 1855, a gold medal, added to which by the emperor 

 was the cross of the Legion of Honor. During his connection with 

 the General Board of Health, he devoted much of his time to the 

 subjects relating either directly or indirectly to hygiene. Not only 

 here, but during his whole life, he had exercised and used his observ- 

 ing powers, so that each new experience added to his valuable stock 

 of facts, which bore especially upon natural philosophy. 



Many traits of his character made him a social favorite, and his 

 interest in society at large has justly caused him to be ranked among 

 the chief promoters of human welfare. All his actions were char- 

 acterized in a remarkable degree by unselfishness. He used none 

 of his inventions in his own interest, and refused to have them pat- 

 ented, in order that their usefulness might be more wide-spread. As 

 Prof. Bain, one of the editors of his " Elements," remarks : " Through- 

 out his life, and by his various inventions and publications, Dr. Neil 

 Arnott manifested a purely philanthropic desire to extend to others 

 the benefits of that knowledge which, from his boyhood upward, he 

 had acquired by long and patient observation. His earnest wish was 

 to make the path of learning easy to all. We have now before us a 

 copy of 'The Elements of Physics' as it first appeared in 1827. 

 Within five years of its publication, five large editions of the w T ork 

 were called for, and, although not then complete, it w r as translated 

 into several foreign languages. It is not too much to say of this and 

 his other works that the learned and the unlearned, the student and the 

 philosopher, have equally benefited by his labors." In addition to 

 his general benevolence referred to above, he strove to promote the 

 advancement of jdiysical science by endowing scholarships in the 

 universities and public schools. In 1869 he gave $10,000 to the Uni- 

 versity of London, and $5,000 each to the universities of Aberdeen, 

 Edinburgh, Glasgow, and St. Andrews. Not having accomplished a 

 design expressed by him of leaving $5,000 to each of the four Scotch 

 universities, his widow has carried out his plans since his death. He 

 died on the 2d of March, 1874. 



