NOTES 637 



funds, and our first expedition, in 1899, resulted in the detection of the chief 

 malaria-bearing mosquitoes at Sierra Leone, the study of their habits, and the 

 development of mosquito-rfeduction as a practical sanitary measure. Other ex- 

 peditions continued similar studies further down the coast. In 1901 Mr. Coats, of 

 Glasgow, gave us .£2,000 to provide an object lesson of how to apply mosquito- 

 reduction— which I gave at Sierra Leone, with very little effect on the local 

 intelligence. In 1902 I visited that enlightened colony for the third time, and 

 then showed the Suez Canal Company how to reduce malaria at Ismailia. In 1904 

 I visited Panama at the request of the American Government ; in 1906, Greece ; 

 and in 1907-8, Mauritius ; and we also sent many other expeditions to Africa and 

 America. But I mention all this merely in order to indicate the wide activities of 

 the School, which were rendered possible only or largely by Milne's capacity as 

 secretary. The shipowners and merchants of Liverpool found the money. The 

 colonies themselves, except Mauritius, subscribed little or nothing, looked upon 

 our visits almost as intrusions, and (excepting Lagos under Sir William MacGregor) 

 seldom took our advice. From that day to this I for one have never received a 

 word of thanks from most of them for the time we spent and the money we lost by 

 trying to help them So much for the administrative capacity of the modern 

 Briton— which, as I have always said openly, I have little belief in. We talk 

 grandly of the manner in which we bear "the white man's burden," but when 

 science gives us such a magnificent opportunity for bettering tropical conditions 

 we do not take it— and even omit to pay our doctors' fees ! The neglect has 

 probably cost the Empire millions of lives and money. 



Jones, being a shipowner, and Boyce, being a professor, were speedily knighted 

 for all these discoveries. Milne received a CM.G. in 191 1 ; but when Jones left 

 a large sum of money to the cause, neither Milne nor, I believe, any of the other 

 workers were given a penny of it ; and when he retired some little time ago, the 

 institution which he had so largely helped to create did not even spare him a 

 pension. Of course I am no longer connected with it in any way. 



Milne was born in Jamaica in 1869— the son of the Very Reverend A. J. Milne 

 of Fyvie, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and his 

 mother was ne'e Miss A. L. Hodgson. He was educated at Fettes College in 

 Edinburgh, and at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and was never married. He 

 was a typical secretary— good-looking, genial, diplomatic, suave and smiling, a 

 remorseless extractor of subscriptions, and a brilliant organiser of meetings and 

 dinners. He was the author of some very amusing illustrated rhymes called 

 Ulysses, or de Rougemont of Troy ; and, of course, an editor of certain business 

 journals and secretary of various bodies in Liverpool. Tropical medicine has often 

 suffered much from the class of person connected with it ; but Milne was a 

 well-educated man and a gentleman. He saw, with some humour, through the 

 people with whom he had to deal, but remained loyal to them ; and I do not think 

 that he had an enemy in the world. Latterly he had suffered much from ill-health, 

 on account of which he retired in 1917. He died at Paignton on January 21, 1919, 

 and was buried in Fyvie churchyard. 



Dead Darwin 



We have to present our congratulations to Dr. Charles H. O'Donoghue, 

 recently of University College, London, on being appointed Professor of Zoology 

 in the University of Manitoba. His Inaugural Lecture contains many points of 

 interest. Recently it has been the fashion to decry Darwin as much as possible, 

 and we have even heard professors of ultra-science trying to maintain that Darwin 



