68 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE 



William Btteke Stonham died on tlie 6th December, 1896, 

 at ToBbridg;e House, Maidstone. He had attended the dinner 

 ^ivpn to Sir Edward Poynter, P.E.A., at the Eoyal Society's 

 Club oQ Dec. 2, and returned to Maidstone on the same night. 

 Duriuo; the journey he caught a chill ; acute inflammation of the 

 thyroid gland set in, which was aggravated by an attack o£ 

 tracheitis and bronchitis. He became rapidly worse, and laryn- 

 gotomy had to be performed on Dec. 6, but he died soon after 

 the operation. Mr. Stonham was an ardent botanist. At the 

 age of 15 he obtained a prize for a collection of dried plants 

 illustrating the flora of Kent. Later on he obtained the Medal 

 for Botany at Dr. Muter's School of Chemistry in South London, 

 where he studied for a year, and then passed the examinations 

 for the membership of the Pharmaceutical Society. He had high 

 scientific and artistic tastes, took a great interest in crystallo- 

 graphy, and evinced considerable skill in oil-painting and wood- 

 carving. During the last few years of his life he turned his 

 attention to microscopy, and at the time of his death he was 

 engaged in preparing a paper on " Pond Life," to be read before 

 the Maidstone Natural History Society, of which he was a 

 member. He was an enthusiastic freemason, a man of kindly 

 disposition, and was respected and loved by all who knew him. 

 He was elected a Fellow so recently as 17th January, 1895. 



[H. N. Stonham.] 



Samuel James Augustus Salteb, M.P., P.E.S., was born at 

 Poole, in the county of Dorset, Aug. 10th, 1825. He was the 

 second son of Dr. Thomas Bell Salter, J.P., F.Ij.S., andayounger 

 brother of the late Dr. Hyde Salter, Senior Physician at Charing 

 Cross Hospital. His mother was a sister of the late Prof. Thomas 

 Bell, formerly President of this Society, and there can be little 

 doubt that to this relationship was due the early taste for 

 zoology which he cultivated through life. His education, com- 

 menced at Poole, was continued at King's College, London, and 

 after taking his M.B. degree at the London TJniversitv, he 

 joined his uncle in practice as a dental surgeon in Old Broad 

 Street, City. In 1874 he published a work on ' Dental Pathology 

 and Surgery,' which tlirew light upon many important points, 

 such, for instance, as his diffei'entiating from pure surgery a class 

 of tumours which before his investigations were supposed to 

 belong to the bones themselves, but which as odontomes are 

 now known to be composed of secondary dentine. He also 

 elucidated the question of reflex nervous phenomena, such as 

 partial paralysis and blindness arising from the irritation of a 

 diseased tooth, and published a full and instructive account of 

 phosphorous disease, from which makers of lucifer matches suffer 

 much, showing how it may be obviated by using red instead of 

 ordinary phosphorus, since the former does not give rise to 

 acid fumes when exposed to the air, and consequently does not 

 attack the mouth and teeth. 



