198 Royal Society, 



tions lie made in the course of some analyses which he undertook 

 at the request of tlie Commissioners appointed by the Crown to 

 inquire into the supply of water to the metropolis. 



Some of the more finished papers and essays which had appeared 

 in these works, were afterwards republished by him in a separate 

 form. Among these are his " Account of the History and present 

 state of Galvanism," originally published in Brewster's Cyclopaedia, 

 and which appeared in 1818 ; and his " History of Medicine," which 

 had been prefixed to the Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine. One 

 of his earliest publications was an " Essay on Respiration ;" his at- 

 tachment to chemical pursuits having naturally led him to the par- 

 ticular study of this part of the animal economy. At a later period, 

 he engaged in the compilation of a general work, embracing the 

 whole subject of physiology, which he completed in three volumes, 

 the last of which appeared in 1 827, under the title of " Elementary 

 System of Physiology ;" the third and last edition, published in 1837, 

 comprised the whole in one thick octavo volume of nearly 900 pages. 

 It is a work of immense labour and researcii, containing condensed 

 and elaborate analyses of all that had at that time been published, 

 both as to facts and theories, in the wide field of physiology. It con- 

 stitutes, in fact, an Encyclopedia of this department of medical 

 science, where the student will find indicated, with scrupulous ex- 

 actness, the authorities for every statement, and the sources which 

 may supply him with whatever further information he might require 

 on any particular subject. After he had completed this work, he 

 projected a new translation of Pliny's " Natural History," to be ac- 

 companied with notes ; in 1828 he printed, for private distribution, 

 a specimen of the work, consisting of the first and thirty-third 

 books ; and he afterwards devoted a considerable portion of his 

 time to the prosecution of this undertaking, in which he had made 

 some progress at the time of his death. For the last two or 

 three years his health had been declining, but the immediate cause 

 of his death was an attack of cholera, which proved fatal on the 6th 

 of August in the present year. 



Respected and beloved by a wide circle of friends and relatives, 

 his memory will long be cherished with affection by those who sur- 

 vive, and with gratitude by the votaries of those sciences which his 

 labours have promoted and enriched. 



John Constantine Carpue, a distinguished teacher of Ana- 

 tomy and Surgery. 



John Thomson, M.D., one of the ablest representatives of the 

 last generation of medical men, was Professor of General Pathology 

 in the University of Edinburgh, and died on the 1 1th of October last, 

 at his residence in the vicinity of that city, at the advanced age of 

 eighty-two years. 



He was born in the town of Paisley in Renfrewshire, and in over- 

 coming the impediments of an humble station, of straitened cir- 

 cumstances, and of a defective education, he early exhibited those 

 vigorous intellectual powers which were afterwards so successfully ex- 

 erted in the acquirement of information and the promotion of science. 



