March 17, 1898] 



NATURE 



467 



The diflference between the common seal and the 

 other species mentioned, as regards the condition of the 

 young at birth and the shedding of the coat, is curious, 

 and is perhaps to be accounted for in some measure by 

 the different nature of their haunts at the time the 

 young are born. The Greenland and grey seals bring 

 forth their young upon rocky out-of-the-way islands, 

 where they stand little chance of being molested, and 

 consequently there is no need to get the young hurriedly 

 to sea. The common seal, though breeding also on 

 wild coasts, very often deposits the young on a sand-bank 

 at no great distance from a fishing village, and subject 

 sometimes to be submerged at high tides. On such 

 banks the stay of the parent seals must be comparatively 

 brief, for were the young not speedily able to take care 

 of themselves, many would perish soon after birth. Thus 

 it would seem that the greater activity of the young 

 common seal is correlated with its conditions of life. 



We have an analogous case in the difference to be found 

 at birth in the rabbit and hare. The young rabbit born 

 underground, where it is more or less removed from 

 danger, is helpless and blind at birth ; the young hare, 

 deposited in a " form " on the sur- 

 face, where it is more exposed to 

 enemies, is born clothed with fur and 

 with the eyes open. The rabbit 

 stands in no need of early or rapid 

 development ; the young hare, on 

 the contrary, must quickly leave the 

 nursery and learn to shift for itself. 

 So it may be with the seals. 



J. E. Harting. 



Liston, with whom Quain came to be on terms of inti- 

 mate friendship. The clever young Irish lad, enjoying 

 such advantages, immediately made his way to the front 

 at College and University ; and at the end of his curri- 

 culum as a student, obtained the coveted post of Resident 

 Medical Officer at the Hospital. 



It was shortly after this that Quain produced the 

 brilliant research on the nature of fatty degeneration 

 with which his name is associated for all time, and 

 established his reputation as an original observer and 

 thinker. Simple as the doctrine appears to us at the 

 present day, fifty years ago it was a startling pronounce- 

 ment by a young man fresh from his medical studies that 

 fat may be, and often is, a product of the decompositiori 

 of muscular tissue, and that this change goes on in the 

 living body. The ideas of life, nutrition, and death were 

 greatly influenced by the doctrine. This, let us re- 

 member, was many years before Bauer and Voit, working 

 with phosphorus in starving animals, furnished the proof 

 experimentally and quantitatively ; and Quain's claim 

 was freely admitted by Virchow and Paget. 



Although he was one of the founders of the Patho- 



SIR RICHARD QUAIN. 



SIR RICHARD QUAIN, Bart., 

 M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S., President 

 of the General Medical Council, died 

 on March 13, at the advanced age of 

 eighty-one years. He had been ill 

 for more than twelve months, and 

 during the last half-year of his life 

 was entirely confined to bed. His 

 last appearance in public was when 

 his paper on the " Cause of the First 

 Sound of the Heart "' was read before 

 the Royal Society in June, on which 

 occasion the President made a touch- 

 ing reference to the extraordinary 

 courage which Quain displayed. 

 His life had been one of ceaseless 

 activity, good health, and overflowing 

 spirits ; and when overtaken by disease he appeared not 

 to regard or understand rest, physician though he was. The 

 paper just referred to was written in bed, and he left his 

 bed to present and defend it. But no one was surprised 

 at this who knew the story of the man's life. 



Richard Quain was an Irishman, born at Mallow, Co. 

 Cork, on October 30, 1816. As a child he was precocious. 

 He was thoroughly grounded in English and the classics ; 

 distinguished himself at the public examinations, and at 

 fifteen entered on an apprenticeship of five years as an 

 apothecary. Even at this age he resolutely fought the 

 cholera when it swept over Limerick. No doubt experi- 

 ence of this kind, and thus early, gave Quain courage and 

 readiness in dealing with disease as a practitioner ; but 

 influences of more scientific bearing were to shape his 

 career. The year 1837 finds him in London at Univer- 

 sity College, with a galaxy of teaching talent around 

 him : Sharpey, Graham, Grant, Elliotson, Jones Quain 

 the anatomist, and Richard Quain the surgeon and 

 author of " The Arteries "—his cousins, from the same 

 district — and as an instructor in practical surger)' the great 



NO. 1 48 1, VOL. 57] 



Fig. 2. — An older pup, still retaining woolly coat. 



logical Society, an early Secretary of it, and a frequent 

 exhibitor at its meetings, Quain produced no other 

 original work in this direction. His activities were 

 being diverted into other channels. He quickly became 

 popular as a practitioner ; and having secured the valu- 

 able appointment of physician to the Brompton Hospital 

 for Consumption, he was presently recognised as an 

 authority on tuberculosis and diseases of the heart. 

 Quain's personal qualities — the interest he displayed in 

 his patients, his kindness, cheeriness, and cleverness in 

 diagnosis and treatment — enabled him to turn to ad- 

 vantage his opportunities in practice ; and whilst he was 

 still comparatively young, he rose to the front rank of 

 London consultants. 



His heart was, for all this, even more closely set on 

 the public work associated with Medicine. Medical 

 education, medical research, medical relief at hospitals 

 — these were the subjects at which he mainly worked, 

 and with an energy and avidity which appeared to grow 

 rather than wane as time passed and he attained in his old 

 age the highest positions in the profession. A senator 



