28 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE 



and so gave a touch of life and cheerfulness to lighten 

 his depression. 



Arrived at London, his B.A. diploma served him for 

 matriculation, and he started the usual first-year work of 

 the medical student. The physics and chemistry were much 

 what he had done before, but the zoology course, under 

 Ray Lankester, was interesting and wholly new ; for even 

 to this day Calcutta University excludes zoological science. 

 Botany too, in the summer term, was congenial, so that 

 the preliminary scientific examination was passed without 

 difficulty. With the following autumn term began the 

 first year of medical studies proper, with anatomy. But 

 the fever was still as bad as ever, with even more frequent 

 attacks, which were brought on intensely by the odours 

 of the dissecting-room. Hence the anatomist advised young 

 Bose to give up his medical course as hopeless. Dr. Ringer, 

 then the most distinguished physician of the Hospital, 

 as well as one of the best and kindliest of professors, 

 who had already been treating him with arsenical and 

 other injections, but all without success, concurred in this 

 advice. Thus thrown into new perplexity, Bose decided 

 on leaving London and taking to science at Cambridge. 

 The fever determined his course afresh, and for life. First 

 came a dreary struggle to cram Latin, etc., enough for the 

 entrance examination (in which Sanskrit was accepted 

 in lieu of Greek) ; but of all this little recollection remains, 

 save a lifelong ill will to Paley ! A natural science scholar- 

 ship was won at Christ's College, and he entered in January 

 1881. A very different life was thus begun, more congenial, 

 though only very slowly curative ; for this old metropolis 

 of the Fens was for an ague patient one of the worst of 

 climates to be found in Britain indeed north of the Mediter- 

 ranean. Abandoning all drugs, young Bose took to boating, 

 with daily perspiration accordingly, and general strengthen- 

 ing as well. But the fever persisted, and at one time 

 became so severe as to alarm the college authorities. An 

 upset in the icy water of the Cam was a setback. The attacks 



