William Marcet. 167 



tubercle. In this year, struck with the importance of the observations 

 of Villemin on the inoculation of tuberculosis, Marcet repeated his 

 experiments, and obtained conclusive results from the inoculation of 

 the products of expectoration of consumptive patients, showing that 

 these results could be employed for purposes of diagnosing tubercle. 

 He more especially interested himself with the laryngeal form of 

 phthisis, and for its appropriate investigation familiarised himself with 

 the use of the laryngoscope, then but recently introduced. He pub- 

 lished a small volume on the subject in 1869. 



Two other matters to which Marcet devoted his attention during 

 these busy early years of London life were the influence of alcohol 

 upon the animal organism, and the pathological chemistry of the 

 cattle plague, the last-named work appearing in the Third Report of 

 the commissioners appointed to inquire into the " Origin and Nature 

 of Cattle Plague," published in 1866. The results of his researches on 

 alcoholic intoxication were published in 1860, after having been brought 

 before the British Association at the Aberdeen meeting in the 

 preceding year. He also took an active part in the proceedings on 

 a Committee appointed by the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society 

 to investigate the physiological action of anaesthetics, and the safest 

 mode of administering them. 



The interest which Marcet took in the subject of phthisis, combined, 

 doubtless, with a desire to obtain greater leisure during the summer 

 months for the prosecution of researches and for travelling, of which 

 he was always fond, led him to give up his London practice and to 

 establish himself during the winter months in practice on the Riviera. 

 Here he passed nine winters three at Nice and six at Cannes. From 

 that time he occupied himself almost exclusively with researches 

 having for their object the investigation of phenomena connected with 

 respiration and with the influence of climate and altitude upon it. 

 Marcet was a keen and active mountaineer, and a member of both our 

 own and of the Swiss Alpine Clubs, but he loved to combine scientific 

 observations with the pleasure of climbing, and he would often be 

 accompanied in his ascents by apparatus for the collection of the gases 

 of respiration, the guide whom he took with him serving also as a 

 scientific assistant. In this way he investigated the effects upon the 

 respiratory exchange of altitudes in Switzerland as considerable as the 

 Breithorn (13,685 ft.), the Col Theo dule (10,899ft.), and the Col du 

 G^ant (11,030 ft.). Suspecting that the extreme cold experienced at 

 these heights in Switzerland might materially modify the results of 

 altitude, Marcet determined to repeat the observations upon the Peak 

 of Teneriffe, and here in 1878, at heights of from 8,000 to nearly 

 13,000 feet, he camped out for no less than three weeks, in the 

 company of a guide from Chamounix, making numerous meteorological 



