28 Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased.' 



SIR WILLIAM JENNER. 1815-1898. 



SIR WILLIAM JENNER, who died on December 11, 1898, was born 

 at Chatham in 1815, and entered on his medical studies at University 

 College, London, in the early years of the Institution, im'mediately 

 after the opening of University College Hospital, obtaining his quali- 

 fications to practice in 1837. After holding an assistantship in the 

 country, he entered on general practice near the Regent's Park, and in 

 1844 he took the degree of M.D. in the University of London. His 

 attention had early been directed to the confusion then existing re- 

 garding the specific fevers, and he utilised his leisure time in their 

 practical study at the London Fever Hospital. The results were pub- 

 lished in 1849, as a minute differential description of a series of cases 

 of typhus and typhoid fevers, so carefully observed, and thoroughly 

 recorded, that his facts and close reasoning settled for ever the question 

 of the non-identity of the two diseases. 



The excellence of the work attracted attention, and the same year 

 he was appointed Professor of Pathological Anatomy in University 

 College, and Assistant Physician to the Hospital, becoming Physician 

 in 1854, and soon afterwards he was placed in charge of a special 

 department for diseases of the skin. In 1852 he became Physician to 

 the Hospital for Sick Children, and in 1853 to the London Fever 

 Hospital. He had thus abundant opportunities for the special study of 

 many classes of disease, of which he made the fullest use. He com- 

 bined clinical and pathological observation with ardent industry, and 

 ever strove with brilliant success to obtain a clear insight into the 

 relations between morbid processes and the symptoms by which 

 they are manifested. His conclusions were carefully reasoned out and 

 expressed in clearest and most convincing manner, and his published 

 writings on Rickets, Inherited Syphilis, Diseases of the Skin, and, at 

 a later date, on Diptheria, Emphysema, and Abdominal Tumours, 

 are admirable examples of the application to medicine of a strict 

 scientific method, with practical ends always in view. 



In 1861, on the death of Dr. Baly, he was appointed Physician-in- 

 Ordinary to the Queen, with the high responsibility of personal 

 charge of Her Majesty and the Prince Consort, a post which entailed 

 attendance on the latter during the fatal attack of typhoid fever in 

 the following year. He continued to be the trusted adviser of the 

 Queen until his retirement from practice in 1889. He was made a 

 baronet in 1868, a K.C.B. after the severe illness of the Prince of 

 Wales in 1871, and a G.C.B. on his retirement, receiving thus the 



