LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 25 



technique employed by the Kev. INI. J. Berkeley, F.E.S., in his 

 m3^(olop;ifal studies, Cuniiinghain, before proceeding abroad, spent 

 some time with Berkeley at Sibbertoft. "When he reached 

 Germany, Cunningham, after his visits to the laboratories of 

 Hallier and De Bary, proceeded to Munich, w here he worked for 

 a time with Pettenkofer. 



On his return from Germany Cunningham left for India, where 

 he landed in 1869, and was at once attached for special duty to 

 the department of the Sanitar\' Commissioner, as was his com- 

 panion in Germany, the late Dr. T. E. Lewis. During the next 

 eleven years the two officers were engaged, partly in collaboration 

 and partly independently, in a series of pathological studies of 

 great interest and value. In the cold weather of 1879-80 the 

 Sanitary Department was merged in that of the Surgeon-General 

 with the Government of India. Cunningham was appointed 

 Professor of Physiology in the Medical College of Bengal, while 

 Lewis became secretary to the Surgeon-General in his capacity of 

 Sanitary Commissioner. In 1883, however, Lewis was recalled to 

 England as assistant-professor of pathology in the Army Medical 

 School at Netley, and from this date onwards Cunningham was 

 entrusted with the duties which had fallen to Lewis, in addition 

 to those of his Chair in the Medical College. How well these 

 duties were performed, and how valuable were his contributions 

 to pathology, may be gatliered from the circumstance that he was 

 on this account elected into the Eoyal Society in 1889. 



This pathological work was carried on at Calcutta under trying 

 conditions, with the result that what had been a vigorous con- 

 stitution became seriously undermined. In 1897 Cunningham's 

 health gave way ; he was invalided to England and was not 

 allowed to return to the tropics. After his retirement Cunningham 

 settled in Torquay where, in indifferent health, he devoted the 

 rest of his life to his garden and his books. 



As to Cunningham's pathological studies, this is not the place 

 to say more than to remark that they had in all cases a physio- 

 logical basis. He recognised no line of demarcation between 

 physiology and pathology or between animal and vegetable 

 physiology and pathology. The title of a paper on certain effects 

 of starvation on vegetable and animal tissues, published in the 

 ' Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science ' in 1878, reveals the 

 breadth of his outlook. His contributions to subjects in which 

 members of the Society may be more particularly interested, 

 illustrate the same catholicity of interest. Occasionally these 

 were the by-products of purely official studies, as in the case of 

 his papers on snake-poison, the earliest of which appeared in 

 1869 ; to this subject he returned near the close of his Indian 

 career. As a rule, however, they were rather the relaxations of 

 an active mind, and were either questions which attracted his 

 attention as a teacher of physiology or subjects his interest in 

 Mhich was the outcome of his early friendship with Berkeley and 

 De Barv. To the former cause mav be attributed his account of 



