GASTON BOISSIER. 849 



collection but also for a sufficient catalogue of its contents. Hence 

 the Index Catalogue and later the Index Medicus which have been 

 of the highest value to the student of medicine. 



After a few years spent in the congenial labors of a Professor of 

 Hygiene in the University of Pennsylvania he was persuaded to 

 accept the responsibilities of the New York Public Library in the 

 year 1895 and here were spent the remaining years of his life. 



He was a frequent and welcome visitor in the medical circles of 

 Europe and his addresses upon many subjects of professional interest 

 were always received with eager attention. He held many distinc- 

 tions, conferred by the universities and literary societies of this 

 country and Europe. 



The names of Dr. Billings and Dr. Weir Mitchell were, of all the 

 physicians of their day in this country, probably the two best known 

 in foreign lands. 



H. P. Walcott. 



GASTON BOISSIER (1823-1908) 



Foreign Honorary Member in Class III, Section 4, 1904. 



Gaston Boissier ^ was born in 1823 at Nimes, in the Provence, a 

 region almost as Roman, with its ancient remains, as Italy itself. 

 Not unnaturally, the attention of the youthful Boissier was first 

 turned to archaeology, which in its most significant aspect — the 

 imaginative reconstruction of the past — was a dominant interest 

 throughout his career. His earliest publications were on literary 

 themes, but on such themes as involve a new creation of lost material; 

 he discussed in his Latin dissertation for the doctorate, the manner 

 in which Plautus translated Greek plays — plays no longer extant; 

 he wrote on the poet Attius and the Roman tragedy of the republic — 

 tragedy that has come down to us in scattered fragments ; he essayed 

 a task that has fascinated many — the reconstruction of the life and 

 writings of the erudite Varro ; he argued that Seneca's plays could not 

 have been written for the stage. Of these works, the earliest appeared 

 in 1857, and the latest in 1861 ; during part of this time, and before, 

 he had been professor of rhetoric at Angouleme and Nimes. 



2 This sketch of Gaston Boissier is taken from the article published by the- 

 writer in the New York Nation for June 18, 1908, pp. 550f . 



