NOTES 483 



was to find a really effective hair-wash to destroy the vermin 

 which we know are very common on children even in Britain. 

 Researches on this subject were subsidised by Sir Edwin, and 

 were made at the Runcorn Laboratories at the Liverpool School 

 of Tropical Medicine. Another research was to discover the 

 physiological effect of eggshell chalk. It was Sir Edwin's idea 

 that chalk taken direct from eggshells would be much more 

 beneficial to rickety children than chemical chalks. A certain 

 number of researches were commenced, but never reached an 

 effective result. Thirdly, he once wrote to me asking whether 

 I knew any one who would experiment on the best form of 

 explosive bullet for bringing down airships and aeroplanes. 

 This was before the war ; and I note Sir Edwin's prescience 

 with admiration. He gave a hundred pounds for the work, 

 and I recommended an investigator, who however has never 

 told me the result. 



No one had more ideas, and often more useful ideas, than 

 Sir Edwin. But it is not easy to get other people to take the 

 trouble to bring one's conceptions to fruition. Work of this 

 kind pays the worker so badly that he often takes little or no 

 interest in it, unless it springs in his own mind. As we become 

 older, we see how grateful humanity should be to the few persons 

 who have ideas, and also to the very few persons who attempt 

 to work them out. 



In October 191 3 Sir Edwin very kindly gave me a fund for 

 the small expenses connected with the Beck Laboratory of the 

 Royal Society of Medicine, of which I am Honorary Director, 

 and he and Lady Durning-Lawrence have continued this sub- 

 scription ever since. This has enabled the laboratory to be 

 used. The work done in it as been of very considerable interest 

 and was published by Dr. David Thomson in the Marcus Beck 

 Laboratory Report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of 

 Medicine, July 1914. This Report contains a series of five good 

 papers. In addition to the work of Dr. David Thomson, his 

 brother Dr. John Thomson also commenced studies in the 

 laboratory during 1914, but at the commencement of war both 

 brothers left, one for military service, and the other for em- 

 ployment with the London School of Tropical Medicine. The 

 laboratory is, however, still used by Fellows of the Royal Society 

 of Medicine. As I told Sir Edwin when he was living, but for 

 men like himself science would be in a bad way in Britain. 



