360 GEORGE ROLLESTON xxi 



subjects, was a lecture delivered in 1879 at the Royal 

 Geographical Society, on " The Modifications of the External 

 Aspects of Organic Nature produced by Man's Interference." 



That Dr. Kolleston has not left more original scientific 

 work behind him is easily accounted for by the circumstances 

 under which he lived at Oxford. The multifarious nature of 

 the subjects with which the chair was overweighted ; the 

 perpetual discussions in which, during the whole term of his 

 office, he was engaged, consequent upon the transitional con- 

 dition of education, both at Oxford and elsewhere ; the 

 immense amount of business thrust upon him, or voluntarily 

 undertaken by him, of the kind which always accumulates 

 round the few men who are at the same time capable and 

 unselfish, such as questions pertaining to the local and 

 especially to the sanitary affairs of the town in which he 

 lived, or questions connected with the reform of the medical 

 profession, arising both within and outside the Medical 

 Council, which latter business constantly brought him to 

 meetings in London ; his own wide grasp of interest in social 

 subjects, his deep feeling of the responsibilities of citizenship, 

 and a sense of the duties of social hospitality, which made his 

 house always open to scientific visitors to Oxford, all these 

 rendered impossible to him that intense concentration which 

 is requisite for carrying out any continuous line of research. 



He was often blamed for undertaking so much and such 

 divers kinds of labour, so distracting to his scientific pursuits ; 

 but being by constitution a man who could never see a wrong 

 without feeling a burning desire to set it right, who could 

 never " pass by on the other side " when he felt that it was in 

 his power to help, nothing but actual physical impossibility 

 would restrain him. For several years past, when feeling that 

 his health and strength did not respond to the strain he put 

 upon them, he resorted to every hygienic measure suggested 

 but one, and that the one he most required rest ; but this he 

 never would or could take. During the last term he spent at 

 Oxford, before his medical friends positively forced him (though 

 unfortunately too late) to give up his occupations and seek 

 change in a more genial climate, he was working at the 

 highest pressure, rising every morning at six o'clock, to get 



