192 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY 



undergone the necessary operation and was more com- 

 fortable. The trouble was, however, not permanently 

 removed, and recurrences had happened, as is usual in 

 such cases, in later years. It was probably this tendency 

 which concealed too long the malignant disorder which 

 just thirty years later put an end to his life. 



On the 19th July, 1915, he reported to his friend 

 Fyfe that he had had several huge polypi extracted 

 from his left nostril. " I have stood them for years, 

 one gets into the habit of bearing discomforts, but it 

 is a great relief." This, however, was not to be the 

 end of the mischief. Late in the autumn, when the 

 Scientific Societies were resuming operations, his friends 

 expected to see Ramsay very often. They were, how- 

 ever, to be disappointed, and one who heard rumours 

 of a more serious kind of operation wrote to him and 

 received the following reply : 



" I am sorry to say it is true. I was in the surgeon's hands 

 on Novr. 10th and again on the 13th, and lie did an operation 

 on my left antrum for a tumour, I believe very successfully. 

 Since then, last Monday, I was irradiated for 24 hours with 

 X rays, as a precaution against recurrence. Luckily it is of the 

 kind which can be stopped by radium. I have had a very 

 bad time." 



The hopes of the surgeons and the anxious anticipa- 

 tions of his friends were, however, doomed to disappoint- 

 ment. The trouble became more aggravated, and after 

 many months of physical misery borne with a patience 

 and quiet dignity which filled with admiration the 



