70 Obituary Notices of Felloios deceased. 



nised by him have been shown by modern research to belong to distinct 

 and separate groups. Soon after writing this, however, Roberts began 

 the series of chemical investigations on the urine with which his name 

 is more especially associated, and a few years later, i.e., in 1865, he 

 issued the first edition of his well-known work on Urinary and Renal 

 Diseases. This work was a great deal more than a text-book dealing 

 with a certain class of disease ; it contained much original matter, the 

 results of the observations carried on in his laboratory, and more 

 especially such questions as the daily variations in the reaction of the 

 urine, the influence of food on the reaction, the estimation of sugar in 

 diabetic urine by the loss of density after fermentation, were largely 

 treated in the light of his own work. The last question was one that 

 interested him throughout his life, and even during the last few weeks 

 of his life, when prostrated by grave disease, he was still engaged in 

 perfecting yet another method of determining quantitatively the 

 amount of sugar by fermentation. In addition to devising new tests 

 for the detection and estimation of sugar and proteids in the urine, 

 Roberts's principal work about this time was the recognition and full 

 description of the symptoms that ensue as a result of calculous sup- 

 pression, and this chapter in subsequent editions of his book was one of 

 the most important contributions to our knowledge of the effects of 

 suppression of urine. 



During the next few years, although still pursuing similar work, 

 Roberts attacked the then vexed question of spontaneous generation, 

 and carried out a long series of experiments, the main results of which 

 were embodied in a paper in the ' Philosophical Transactions ' for 1874, 

 and his results are in accordance with the views of the present day. 

 He had previously, in 1863, communicated a paper to the ' Proceed- 

 ings ' on the "Histology of Blood Corpuscles," and in it devised and 

 described methods which were used for thirty years in the routine 

 instruction of students. In 1879 Roberts began a series of investiga- 

 tions on digestive ferments and the artificial digestion of various foods. 

 Many of his results were communicated to this Society in the ' Proceed- 

 ings ' for 1879 and 1881. Sir William Roberts's work on digestion not 

 only added to our knowledge of the action of the digestive ferments., 

 but the practical outcome of this work was very great in affording 

 valuable means for feeding the sick in many diseases, and the very 

 large number of digested and partially digested foods at present avail- 

 able is chiefly due to his work on the subject. 



Subsequently to his removal to London in 1889, he carried out a 

 long series of observations on the relationship of uric acid to grave) 

 and to gout. He added considerably to our knowledge of the path- 

 ology of these diseases by showing the different decompositions that 

 the quadriurates underwent under different circumstances, liberating 

 now uric acid, now a biurate, &c. 



