WILHELM PFEFFEK. 499 



seemed peculiarly in his proper setting by his beloved books. He 

 took a great interest in both the Bodleian Library at Oxford and in the 

 Oxford Press, and to both he gave much thought and time, serving 

 each in official capacity. 



When Osier left Baltimore for Oxford he was almost universally 

 conceded to be the leading man in American medicine. At Oxford he 

 merely widened his sphere so as to become the leader for British as 

 well as American medicine. He died Dec. 29, 1919 of complications 

 following pneumonia. The death of his only son in the World's War 

 and the strain incident to his own activities in connection with the 

 problems of the sick and wounded were important contributing 

 factors. In his lifetime he moulded in many very important ways 

 medical thought and medical teaching. He was greatly beloved by 

 students, fellow practitioners and patients by reason of his human 

 friendliness and his kindliness. To his students and medical col- 

 leagues he was ever an inspiring leader stimulating to diligence in 

 medical work and exemplifying in himself what the ideal physician 

 and medical teacher and writer should be. 



Henry A. Christian. 

 WILHELM PFEFFER (1845-1920). 



Foreign Honorary Member in Class II, Section 2, 1897. 



The death of Professor Wilhelm Pfeffei-, on the 30th of January, 

 1920, removed one of the outstanding figures of the scientific world. 

 With the exception of Strasburger, he probably influenced the work 

 of the last generation of American botanists more deeply than any 

 other man. 



The last two decades of the nineteenth century was a period of re- 

 markable development of botany in America. A number of factors 

 contributed to this, but undoubtedly the most important was the in- 

 fluence of the work of the great German botanists of the previous 

 twenty years. Through the translation of Sachs's famous text-book 

 and several other important German works American botanists were 

 introduced to the results of the investigations of the morphologists and 

 physiologists, who made Germany at that period the leader in botani- 

 cal science. Up to this time, one may almost say that physiology and 

 comparative anatomy in botany, did not exist in America. As a 



