556 



NATURE 



[January ii, 1900 



SIR JAMES PAGET, BART , F.R.S. 



THE death of Sir James Paget removes from our 

 midst one of the ornaments of the medical pro- 

 fession. The loss is not an acute one since, though 

 living up till some ten days ago, Sir James has for the 

 last decade taken little active part in professional matters, 

 but still, although the sphere of his activities has been 

 during this period restricted by infirmity, one had 

 evidence from time to time that he was there, using to 

 the best of his strength that cultured mind, which never 

 lost its vigour, for the benefit of those branches of know- 

 ledge which he loved so well. 



This week's medical papers are so full of the pro- 

 fessional attainments of the subject of this notice, and 

 so rich in minute biographical detail, that there remains 

 on these subjects little to be said. Sir James Paget was 

 chiefly known to the world as a great surgeon, who, in 

 addition to his actual professional abilities, exercised a 

 profound charm over his patients. He was for the years 

 he worked actively at St. Bartholomew's the student's 

 model ; not only what he did in the wards, but how he 

 did it, served as a type to be imitated. His lectures 

 and demonstrations were eagerly attended, and no note 

 of discordance was there. The medical student, now of 

 academic habits, was apt, in the early teaching days of 

 Paget, to be rowdy, but there was never any disorder at 

 his lectures, his fascinating diction rendering even the 

 details of the most unajsthetic subjects sufficiently 

 attractive to ensure the attention of his class. 



Although Sir James Paget's practice as a surgeon, 

 when he was at the height of his vigour, has perhaps 

 never been surpassed, it was to the science of surgery 

 rather than to its art, to its theory rather than to its 

 practice, that he mainly contributed. He was no oper- 

 ating surgeon in the sense of Billroth. His surgery 

 always contained in it an element of philosophy, a projec- 

 tion, so to speak, of his own philosophical spirit. He 

 was a teacher, and enunciator of principles rather than 

 mere facts. 



In these days of what may be termed mathematical 

 biography, one is apt to sum up a man's works, his 

 contributions to knowledge, and regard the sum of them 

 as an accurate measure, if not an actual expression, 

 of his intellectual influence. This is not a fair test of 

 the actual work of Paget. His original work on the 

 catalogue oftheHunterian Collection at the Collegeof Sur- 

 geons, and on that of the museum at St. Bartholomew's, 

 his discovery of the trichina spiralis, his description of 

 Paget's disease of the nipple and osteitis deformans, are 

 perhaps the chief examples of his labours sufficiently 

 sharp to wedge themselves through the crude and erratic 

 surface of popular professional recognition. This, how- 

 ever, is no real measure of the man ; he learnt from 

 everything and taught from everything. He had the 

 power of impressing the most varied subject-mktter with 

 his own philosophical individuality ; the subject-matter 

 in 1846 being the flora of Yarmouth ; in 1896, or there- 

 abouts, the medical student ; his routine duties as 

 warden at St. Bartholomew's affording to him material 

 for a most valuable essay as to the ultimate fate and 

 chances of success of the medical student. 



In Paget's intellectual prime principles of exact science 

 were beginning to be applied to medicine and surgery, 

 such men inter alia as Pasteur, Liebig, Helmoltz, 

 Briicke, &c., were busy examining with instruments of 

 precision the fundamental phenomena and manifesta- 

 tions of life ; not the least merit of Paget was that he 

 kept well abreast of these stirring times, and gleaned 

 from the purely scientific work of the great masters, 

 facts and principles which he applied to surgery and 

 surgical pathology. In these days of triennial medical 

 congresses one can form but a very poor idea of what 

 it meant in Paget's early days to be well up in con- 



NO. 1576, VOL. 61] 



temporary science. His frequent advice to students to 

 learn German seems now difficult to understand ; it 

 would be interesting to inquire how many men there are 

 now who wish they had taken it. 



Paget must be regarded, then, as an original teacher 

 more than an original worker or writer ; his ideas, per- 

 haps somewhat metamorphosed in accordance with 

 more exact technique, by his pupils, are springing up to- 

 day on all sides, and will continue to do so. Like all 

 truly great, he vas truly benevolent, and many sugges- 

 tions and ideas emanating from his mind have seen day- 

 light under the names of his pupils. 



F. W. TUNNICLIFFE. 



NOTES. 



The Chemical Society's Victor Meyer Memorial Lecture will 

 be delivered by Prof. T. E. Thorpe, President of the Society,, 

 on the evening of Thursday, February 8, at 8.30. 



We learn from Science that Prof. William Harkness, astro- 

 nomical director of the U.S. Naval Observatory, retired as 

 Rear- Admiral on December 17, on reaching the age of sixty 

 years. Prof. S. J. Brown has been appointed to succeed him. 

 at the Observatory. 



A SEVERE earthquake occurred on New Year's day in the 

 province of Tiflis. The greatest amount of damage was done in 

 the district of Achalkalak, in which six villages were completely 

 destroyed and seven others had many houses ruined. Up to the. 

 present time, eight hundred dead bodies have been recovered.. 



We regret to have to record the death, on January i, after a 

 very short illness, at his residence in Norwood, of Mr. W. T. 

 Suffolk, the Treasurer of the Royal Microscopical Society, in 

 his sixty-ninth year. Though but little known to the general 

 public, and carried out in a very unobtrusive way, his services ta 

 microscopical science were great. 



The general manager of the South-Eastern and Chatham^ 

 Railway, Mr. Alfred Willis, has made arrangements with the 

 Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company for the Marconi system 

 to be used in the course of a few weeks on the company's Royal 

 Mail steamers between Dover and Calais, and also on their 

 Royal Mail steamers between Folkestone and Boulogne. By 

 this arrangement the vessels when in mid-Channel, or half-an- 

 hour from either the French or English shores, will have tele- 

 graphic communication with either side. 



The Paris correspondent of the Chemist and Druggist re- 

 marks : — Prof. Riche, who was recently succeeded at the Paris 

 School of Pharmacy by Prof. Moissan, was born at Gray (Hautes 

 Saone) in 1829, and studied at the Faculty of Sciences and the 

 Polytechnic School. He was appointed assistant professor at 

 the School of Pharmacy in 1859, and professor of inorganic 

 chemistry in 1873. His principal researches are on tungsten 

 and its compounds. He has done some valuable work at the 

 French Mint in compounding alloys, and is an active and usefu 

 member of the Paris Council of Hygiene. His successor, M. 

 Moissan, declares that it was in listening to his chemical lecture 

 that he felt his first enthusiasm for the subject and resolved to 

 become a chemist. 



Since last week's issue we have received the Connaissance des 

 Temps for 1901, the opening year of the new century. We then 

 quoted a statement in the Times that the Paris Observatory 

 "will henceforth in all its publications reckon the day from 

 midnight to midnight." In spite of a suggestion to the contrary 

 made some time ago, both the Nautical Almanac and the- 

 Connaissance des Teinps have made no change, and the day is 

 reckoned from noon to noon. 



