70 PnOCEEDIXOS OF THE 



careful pieces of work ever produced by a Eritisli niicroscopist. 

 It is the result of several years of study and experiment, and 

 represents many hundred hours of microscopic observation, and 

 record by drawinij; and note. It establishes in the most minuto 

 detail the life-history of the rat's Try]ianosoma, both in the rat 

 and in the associated host — the rat's flea. Our dear friend Mas 

 hard at work breedino; both flea and Trypanosome whilst already 

 suffering from the affection of the heart which ended his life. 

 When he finished his bulky paper and mass of illustrations and 

 sent them to me for publication, he wrote : ' INIany men have 

 broken their hearts for a woman, but I shall be known as the 

 man who broke his heart for a flea !" " 



A feature of Minehin's work which will always stand out in 

 scientilic literature was the ease, lucidity and grace of his literary 

 style. His Presidential Addresses during the years that he was 

 President of tlie Quekett Microscopic-al Club ])resent this feature 

 in a very marked degree, and especially was it noticeable in his 

 Presidential Address to Section D (Zoology) of the British Asso- 

 ciation at Manchester, in September 1915, entitled "The Evolution 

 of the Cell." This Address was written in a comparatively easy 

 interval of his last illness — he spoke of it aptly as " his swan- 

 song '" — and into it he put all the ideas which had been maturing 

 for years in his mind, and which he had hoped to elaborate in a 

 volume. He knew that he would not live to complete that volume, 

 though outwardly he was hopeful to the last and full of jilans for 

 the future. It was thus that the Address, as written, was of a 

 length hitherto untouched by any Sectional Address ever delivered. 

 It was the mournful privilege of the present writer to correct the 

 proofs whilst Minchin was spending the last week of his life with 

 him at Selsey, and to read a full abstract of it at jNIanchester, at 

 the opening meeting of the Section. The effect produced hy that 

 address, and the judgments formed upon it in its extended and 

 published form are still matters of yesterday — the bold assumption 

 and treatment of the single cell as a completely evolved organism, 

 may be fearlessly described as a new concrete basis for the study 

 of cytology, originating in his startling aphorism of the first 

 appearance of "the brand of Cain" in the biococci, "a class of 

 organism M'hich was no longer able to build up its substance from 

 inorganic materials in the former peaceful manner, but which 

 nourished itself by capturing, devouring, and digesting other livhig 

 organisms." 



It was clear to the seeing eye, and the present writer was so 

 apprized by Minehin's physician, that when we put him into our 

 car at Chelsea and took him easily and quietly down to the sea, 

 "the great sweet mother" whom he had always passionatelv loved, 

 that no return thence was to be humanly expected for him. The 

 days and weeks that passed in the companionship of his devoted 

 wife, and devoted friends, saw him growing hourly weaker in body, 

 though his mind retained its old activity, and he never wearied of 

 teaching the children to observe the flowers, the birds and insects, 



