836 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



he was elected assistant pliysician to tlie Hospital for Diseases of tlie 

 Chest at Brompton; was for many years consulting pliysician to 

 the Seamen's Hospital at Greenwich, and to the Royal Hospital for 

 Consumptives at Ventnor. He became a member of the Royal Col- 

 lege of Physicians in 1846, a fellow in 1851, and was at different 

 times member of its council and censor, Lumleian lecturer, senior 

 censor, Harveian orator, and vice-president. From 1864 till his 

 death he was one of the most conspicuous members of the General 

 Medical Council, having been appointed crown member seven times, 

 serving as chairman of some of its most important committees, 

 and having been president of the council since 1891, He was one 

 of the founders of the Pathological Society, an early secretary of it, 

 and a frequent exhibitor at its meetings. While exceptionally popu- 

 lar and successful as a practitioner in medicine, a favorite in society, 

 and a recognized authority on tuberculosis and diseases of the heart, 

 Quain, his biographer in ]S[ature says, " was closely set on the public 

 work associated with medicine. Medical education, medical re- 

 search, medical relief at hospitals — these were the subjects at which 

 he mainly worked, and with an energy and avidity which appeared 

 to grow rather than wane as time passed, and he attained in his old 

 age the highest positions in the profession. A senator of the Uni- 

 versity of London; chairman of the Brown Institution, with Bur- 

 don-Sanderson, Klein, Greenfield, Horsley, and their equally dis- 

 tinguished successors working as professors there; one of the most 

 prominent fellows of the College of Physicians, which was passing 

 through a critical period of its history; and, finally, president of the 

 General Council of Medical Education and Registration, of which he 

 had been for thirty years a member — Quain had his hands full; 

 yet he never appeared to grudge his time to a friend in want of 

 advice; and he was always keen and ready for the latest information 

 in science." 



Probably Quain's gTeatest service to knowledge and to the gen- 

 eral welfare was rendered in connection with the investigations of 

 the royal commission to inquire into the nature, causes, and 

 methods of prevention of the cattle plague, to which he was ap- 

 pointed in 1865, in association with Lord Spencer (chairman), the 

 present prime minister, then Lord Cranbourne, Lord Sherbrooke, 

 Dr. Lyon Playfair, Dr. Edmund Parkes, and Dr. Henry Bence 

 Jones. " In the valuable transactions of this royal commission," 

 the Lancet says, " Quain took a very prominent and useful part ; 

 in fact, for several months the question occupied almost his whole 

 time. The whole matter was gone into most extensively by the com- 

 mission, and not the least searcliing among the frequent questions 

 were those addressed by Dr. Quain to the various veterinary and 



