RESIGNS CHAIRMANSHIP 335 



the record of a tragic occurrence which affected 

 Sir John very deeply — the sudden and wholly 

 unexpected death of his daughter Constance, 

 wife of Mr. Sydney Buxton. " All her life she 

 was nothing but a comfort and a joy to me," he 

 writes. " She was indeed full of sympathy and 

 thought for every one." And again, five days 

 later : " She was indeed a joy and blessing and 

 comfort to me, and I ought to be thankful that 

 she was spared so long to us. To talk to her 

 was like sunshine and sea air, and she was so 

 utterly unselfish. I can hardly realise that we 

 have lost her." 



It is a charming and touching eulogy. Never- 

 theless, deep as Sir John's grief was he did not 

 allow it to suspend his activities. In response 

 to a request from Dr. Welldon, the Headmaster of 

 Harrow, he gave a lecture on Natural Science 

 to the School on the Hill. At the opening of 

 the Medical Session he distributed the prizes at 

 St. Thomas', and gave an address of which the 

 concluding portion is worthy of passing notice. 



He said that " In recent years Medical Science 

 had made marvellous strides. Sir George Hum- 

 phrey in his address last year had pointed out 

 that when he began life anaesthetics and anti- 

 septics had not been dreamt of, there were no 

 excisions of joints, no abdominal operations. It 

 was an antideluvian period without temperature 

 thermometers, without stethoscopes, aspirators, 

 iodide of potassium, salicylic acid, or even cod 

 liver oil. The treatment of wounds was some- 

 thing horrible. During that period the know- 

 ledge of the localisation of brain function had 



