WALTER HOLBROOK GASKELL, 1847-1914.1 



By J. N. Langley. 



Walter Holbrook Gaskell was born on November 1, 1847, at Naples, 

 where his parents were passing the winter for the sake of his father's 

 health. His father, John Dakin Gaskell, was a barrister, a member of 

 the Middle Temple, who followed his profession for a few years and 

 then retired to private life. His mother was Anne Gaskell, second 

 cousin of his father. Gaskell as a boy lived with his father at High- 

 gate and attended Sir Eoger Cholmeley's school at that place. At 

 school he worked chiefly at mathematics, but had considerable interest 

 in natural history, and appears to have made more than the usual 

 schoolboy collections connected with that subject. 



He came up to Cambridge in October, 1865, when he was not quite 

 18, as a member of Trinity College. In his third year he was elected 

 to a foundation scholarship, and proceeded to the B. A. degree in 

 1869, heing twenty-sixth wrangler in the mathematical tripos. After 

 taking his degree he studied for a medical career, and in the course of 

 his preliminary scientific work he attended the lectures on elementary 

 biology and physiology given by Michael Foster, who came to Cam- 

 bridge as prelector in physiology at Trinity College in 1870. Foster 

 led a considerable number of his early pupils to a scientific career. 

 He first aroused an interest in scientific problems and then, some- 

 times gradually, sometimes suddenly, suggested that there was no 

 better course in life than that of trying to solve them. Gaskell, as 

 far as my recollection serves, was influenced in the latter way. In 

 1872 he went to University College Hospital, London, for clinical 

 work. On his return to Cambridge, Foster, in the course of a conver- 

 sation with him, suggested he should drop his medical career for the 

 time and try his hand at research in physiology. Gaskell, I believe, 

 adopted on the spot this suggestion, and instead of proceeding to 

 the M. B. degree went to Leipzig to work under Ludwig (1874). 



At this time Ludwig's laboratory was much the most important 

 school of physiological research in Germany or elsewhere. It at- 

 tracted students from all parts of the world. All the work was 

 planned by Ludwig, who had an almost unerring se nse of the lines 



1 Reprinted by permission from the Proceedings of the Royal Society, London, Series B, 

 vol. 88, no. 60G, April 1, 1915. 



