350 Obituary. 



About a year later he became engaged as a clerk in the Coalbrook- 

 dale Co., at a salary beginning at 20/. a year. He soon got on, 

 and was a favourite of the general manager, who chose him as his 

 private secretary during the absence of his own secretary in 

 America. 



Knowing that he could do better things than clerking Plimmer 

 wrote in 1877 to Dr. J. H. Gal ton, who had years before been his 

 father's assistant, asking how one began medicine and whether a 

 man could get qualified without money. His whole capital was 

 400/. from his father. Dr. Galton replied that an assistant who 

 had been with him for four years had just qualified and was 

 leaving, and would he like to come and do the same. Feeling that 

 here was his chance, he left his occupation at the Coalbrookdale 

 Co. and went to Dr. Galton on April 2, 1878, at a sala.ry of 50/. 

 a year and board. He lived with Dr. Galton at Norwood, and had 

 at first to do the dispensing and book-keeping. He gradually got 

 on to helping in the poor part of the practice, which was large, of 

 Galton and his partner, Sidney Turner. He became in fact •' an 

 unqualified assistant."* He entered Guy's Hospital as a perpetual 

 student in the following October, the full fee being paid out of his 

 small capital. His mother came to Norwood in 1880, so he left 

 Galton's house and lived with his mother. 



He was Prosector to the Eoyal College of Surgeons in 1882, 

 became L.S.A. in October of the same year, and M.E.C.S. in 

 January, 1883. The v."ork at Norwood had been very hard and it 

 was impossible for him to do more than just qualify. He did 

 practically the whole of the parish and dispensing work, and fre- 

 quently went two and three times a day backwards and forwards 

 to Guy's Hospital, as well as being up at night two and three 

 times a week attending midwifery cases. He did not regret these 

 hard years, for he saw and did as much before he was qualified 

 as many men do in ten years after. His interest in pathology 

 arose from his association with Dr. (Sir) Samuel Wilks. He did 

 not however hold any resident appointment. About 1883 he 

 became intimately acquainted with Alfred Aders, of Manchester, 

 and his Mdfe and family, who were living at Norwood. After the 

 death of Alfred Aders he married his widow, Helena, in ' 1887. 

 His domestic life with this lady, who survives him, was ideally 

 happy. He had previously been made a partner, in 1883, and 

 the firm became Sidney Turner, Galton and Plimmer. In 1889 he 

 moved from Norwood to Sydenham. 



In 1892 he retired from general practice so as to devote himself 

 to bacteriology and research, which he began with Professor 

 Crookshank at King's College. In October of this year he described 

 those inclusions in cancer cells subsequently called " Plimmer's 



* The unqualified assistant's post was at that time a recognized method of 

 entering the medical profession. 



