NOTES 



Increase in Length of " Science Progress " 



The reader's attention should be called to the fact that the 

 length of Science Progress has been increased in this Number 

 to the equivalent of nearly fifteen pages by setting the larger 

 type close together, and it is hoped that this arrangement will 

 be continued in future. The increase amounts to about 9 per 

 cent, of the former length. The demands upon our space are 

 so great that the attention of contributors is especially invited 

 to the Notice at the beginning of the number. 



Charles Arthur Mercier, M.D. (Lond.), F.R.C.P., F.It.C.S. 



The death, in September last, of this distinguished physician, 

 philosopher, man of science and rare craftsman in letters, is 

 a loss that will be widely felt by those who know his works, 

 and a cause of sincere grief to his many friends. Only so 

 much of his life as may seem to bear on his character and line 

 of work can be touched on here, and that but slightly. After 

 a few years' study at Merchant Taylor's School, he felt obliged 

 by circumstances to seek active employment, and for a while 

 he acquired much knowledge of various kinds which bore 

 fruit later. He was at last enabled to begin medical study 

 at the London Hospital Medical School, and as soon as he 

 had won his qualifications to practice he freed himself from 

 all obligations. From this time onwards he worked on per- 

 sistently and strenuously to within a few weeks before his 

 death at the age of sixty-seven, interrupted at intervals only 

 by the effects of the long and often painful disease from which 

 he suffered for over twenty years : of late severely crippled, 

 but ever keen in mind, and brave to the end. 



His reputation as an alienist physician, and as a lecturer 

 at three medical schools in London over a period of many 

 years, was of the best. He was, indeed, one of the few 

 authorities on his special subject who have been at once sound 

 thinkers, accurate observers, learned psychologists, precise 

 writers and luminous expounders of what they had to say. 



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