277 



OBITUARY. 



Lionel Smith Beale, F.R.S., etc., 

 President R.M.S., 1879-80. Treasurer R.M.S, 1881-90. 



Lionel Smith Beale was born in 1828, in a house close to the 

 Church of St. Paul, Covent Garden. He received his early educa- 

 tion at a private school at Highgate, and later at King's College, 

 with which institution he was closely associated till his death. In 

 1847 he went to Oxford as anatomical assistant in the museum to 

 Henry Acland. He held this appointment for two years, and then 

 returned to London, where he took his M.B. degree in 1851. In 

 1852 he established a laboratory, where he taught normal and 

 morbid histology and physiological chemistry. In 1853 he was 

 appointed Professor of Physiology at King's College, and in 1869 

 Physician to King's College Hospital and Professor of Pathological 

 Anatomy. 



Professor Beale was made a Fellow of the Eoyal Society in 

 1857, at the early age of twenty-nine, and two years later he 

 received the Fellowship of the Eoyal College of Physicians. 



He joined the Society in 1852, was President in 1879-80, and 

 Treasurer from 1881-90. 



In 1896 he resigned his appointments at King's College and 

 King's College Hospital, owing to a slight attack of cerebral 

 haemorrhage ; he was then made Emeritus Professor of Medicine 

 and Consulting Physician to the hospital. From this seizure he 

 never properly recovered, and finally succumbed to another attack 

 of haemorrhage on March 28 of the present year. 



In 1859 he married Frances, daughter of Rev. Peyton Blakeston, 

 M.D., F.R.S., and leaves a son, Mr. Peyton T. B. Beale, Surgeon to 

 King's College Hospital, a Fellow of the Society, and for many 

 years Demonstrator of Histology, and Lecturer on Biology in 

 King's College, London. 



Beale's work is variously estimated, but, like that of some 

 others, is less appreciated in this country than abroad. As a 

 physician, there is no doubt that he was extremely able, though 

 his methods were different from the ordinary. He examined 

 patients with rapidity, apparently carelessly, and arrived at a 

 correct conclusion in much less time than many take to elaborate 

 an erroneous diagnosis. As Medical Adviser to the Clerical and 

 Medical Assurance Company, he made many thousands of examina- 

 tions, and his results were used as an actuarial basis for estimating 

 the probabilities of life. 



