59 



NA TURE 



[October 21, 1897 



circulation. The acquaintanceship of the two workers 

 rapidly ripened into intimate friendship. Kuhne in his 

 memorial sketch (1885) of Cohnheim wrote : " Once only 

 did his name appear in actual association with that of a 

 pupil, to wit in association with that of the present Pro- 

 fessor of General Pathology at Cambridge, Charles Roy, 

 in the ' Researches on the Circulation in the Kidneys.' 

 These exact and laborious researches, through which the 

 younger worker and the elder must go down to posterity 

 together, were the last that Cohnheim ever edited him- 

 self, and in their prosecution it was a delight to him to 

 admire the extreme skill and the happy facility of his 

 younger colleague, well suited as those gifts were to 

 prosecute scientific pathology in the very direction in 

 which he himself believed it could prosper best." Cohn- 

 heim's death in 1884, at the early age of forty-five, was 

 felt by Roy as a severe personal loss. He often spoke 

 of Cohnheim in terms of enthusiastic admiration. He 

 looked upon himself as in a way representing in this 

 country the leadership which Cohnheim held as a 

 pathologist of a new school in Germany. Roy stayed at 

 Leipzig nearly a year. While there he received the 

 G. H. Lewes studentship for research in physiology. 

 This studentship had just been founded by " George 

 Eliot " in memory of her deceased husband, and Roy was 

 its first recipient. 



In tenure of this studentship he worked in Prof. 

 Michael Foster's laboratory at Cambridge, and thence 

 issued his paper " On the Physiology and Pathology 

 of the Spleen " {Journal of Physiology^ vol. v.). This 

 communication contains his discovery of an autoch- 

 thonous rhythmic tonicity in the mammalian spleen ; the 

 vasomotor reactions of the organ were also elucidated. 

 In 1880 he was elected a member of the Physiological 

 Society. While then at Cambridge he lectured to ad- 

 vanced students of physiology on the elasticity of animal 

 tissues. In 1882, on the election of Prof. Greenfield to 

 the Edinburgh chair of General Pathology, Roy was 

 chosen to succeed him as Professor Superintendent of 

 the Brown Institution. There he plunged into the work 

 on the action of the mammalian heart, which he never 

 relinquished until nervous breakdown divorced him from 

 his laboratory. 



Soon after his installation at the Brown Institution, 

 Roy was commissioned to investigaie in the Argentine 

 Republic a disease which was devastating the herds -in 

 the province of Entre Rios. He succeeded in alleviat- 

 ing the mischief by a preventive inoculation. He used 

 the viscacha as medium for attenuating the intensity of 

 the virus. The year 1884 was especially eventful for 

 him. Early in that year he published his valuable method 

 for measuring the specific gravity of the blood, a method 

 suitable for and used with great success in conducting 

 clinical observations. In May he was elected a Fellow 

 of the Royal Society, and soon after that he was elected 

 to the newly-instituted chair of Pathology in the Univer- 

 sity of Cambridge. He was elected a member of the 

 Alpine Club almost in the same week. He was then in 

 his thirtieth year. In the following summer, 1885, 

 Asiatic cholera having appeared in a very severe 

 epidemic form in Spain, he spent the middle and autumn 

 of the year in prosecuting investigations into the bac- 

 teriology of the epidemic with his friends Dr. Graham 

 Brown and Prof. Sherrington. The report of the observ- 

 ations obtained was presented to the Royal Society in 

 the year following. 



Although his activity at Cambridge during the later 

 tenure of his chair has suffered under his failure of health, 

 and in the early period was hampered by want of 

 adequate accommodation in the matter of buildings and 

 equipment, Roy's work for his department in the short 

 time that it had free scope was marked by conspicuous 

 success in many ways. In 1887, with the co-operation of 

 Sir Richard Webster, he succeeded in securing the found- 

 NO. 1460, VOL. 56] 



ation of the J. Lucas Walker Studentships in Pathology. 

 These have been of the greatest benefit, both in further- 

 ing discovery and in training investigators in scientific 

 pathology. The selection of the candidates for these 

 studentships lay largely with the Professor of Pathology ; 

 in his laboratory the whole or main part of their work 

 was accomplished ; in it and in them he always took the 

 keenest interest, following their progress with eagerness. 

 The mere recital of their names (Dr. William Hunter, 

 Prof. Adami, Prof. Kanthack, Dr. Lorrain Smith, Prof. 

 Wesbrook, Dr. Cobbett) suffices to indicate the sterling 

 success Roy achieved in this department of his office. 

 The lectures on pathology were on Roy's appointment 

 at first delivered in the old theatre, for the Regius 

 Professor of Physic, adjoining the Medical Museum ; the 

 work of research and teaching at that time was carried 

 on in rooms lent by Prof. Foster from the physiological 

 laboratory. It was there that the research on the 

 " Mechanism of the Circulation in the Bram," undertaken 

 in conjunction with Prof. Sherrington, was carried out 

 {lourtial of Physiology, vol. x.). But in 1889 buildings 

 vacated by the Chemistry School were transformed 

 and refitted to receive the department of Pathology. In 

 the better laboratory several able pupils joined him — 

 Griffiths, Rolleston, Hankin, Keng, Hardy, and Barlow ; 

 Prof. Arthur Gamgee, and Prof. Filehne of Breslau 

 also for some time worked there. A rapid output 

 of excellent work in experimental pathology resulted : 

 researches on endocardic pressures, on the relation be- 

 tween heart-beat and pulse-wave, on the specific gravity 

 of the blood, on the seat of production of hccmoglobin, 

 on mechanisms protective against infection, on the 

 causation of "shock," on the formation of lymph — in all 

 these he actively interested himself, encouraging them 

 absolutely unselfishly. Although his interest in biology 

 was strikingly catholic, problems connected with the 

 circulation had perhaps a paramount attraction for him 

 always; and in 1892 appeared in the Philosophical 

 Transqctions the long work on the mammalian heart, 

 carried out with Prof. Adami. Instruments were to a 

 large extent specially devised for this research, and some 

 of these have already become means of investigation in 

 other laboratories besides those at Cambridge. The 

 cardiac plethysmograph, and the cardiomyograph, and 

 the automatic counter, were each examples of ingenuity 

 that never failed to meet with resource the mechanical 

 difficulties of a subject numerously beset by them. 



Prof. Roy was one of the earliest — perhaps the earliest 

 one — to originate that movement that has resulted in the 

 foundation of the British Institute of Preventive Medi- 

 cine. To furtherance of the project he devoted much 

 time and work. He advocated its obtaining a site at or 

 near Cambridge : that his advice was not followed on this 

 point, was always to him a matter of deep regret. In 1893 

 he was President of the Section of Pathology at the 

 annual meeting of the British Medical Association at 

 Newcastle. He took as the subject for his brief but 

 vigorous address the defensive mechanisms exhibited by 

 the animal body under the assault of disease. In 1894 

 he attended the Section of Physiology at the meeting of 

 the British Association at Oxford, and took an active 

 part in its sessions. The flight of birds, the possibility 

 of flight by man, the construction of flying machines 

 formed a favourite theme with him, and one in which he 

 had made some original observations and experiments : in 

 connection with it he contributed an essay on Flight to 

 Prof Newton's Dictionary of Ornithology. On coming 

 to reside at Cambridge he became attached to Trinity 

 College. In 1887 he married Violet, daughter of Sir 

 George Paget, the late Regius Professor of Physic in the 

 University. Nearly a year before Prof. Roy's death the 

 condition of his, health had led to the appointment of 

 a Deputy-Professor, Prof. A. A. Kanthack. 



A man of strong convictions, almost impetuous in his 



