170 



XATURE 



[October 31, 19 18 



had also been his collaborator in a somewhat 

 similar booklet on the Mycetozoa, published in 1899. 

 The last-named no doubt was the outcome of Sir 

 Edward Fry's friendship with the late Mi. Arthur 

 ter and Miss G. Lister, the results of whose 

 work on this remarkably primitive and isolated 

 group of organisms had recently been published in 

 the British Museum Catalogue of the Myce- 

 tozoa. 



Sir Edward Fry's interest was not confined to 

 the lower plants. One who met him in Switzer- 

 land recalls his knowledge of the Alpine flora; and 

 in reference to a trip which he made with the 

 Listers to Egypt in 1900 Miss Lister writes: "I 

 well recall his deep interesl in the xerophytic desert 

 plants. The collection was worked out at home 

 with the aid of Boissier.'s ' flora Orientalis,' and 

 took its place with those from Greece and other 

 foreign and homelands he had visited." In the 

 garden of his home at f'ailand, near Bristol, he had 

 brought together many rare and unusual plants, 

 and had also arranged part of it as a pinetum. 

 His interest in his garden, his collections, and in 

 natural life in'manv forms was retained to the 

 end. He was elected a fellow: of the Royal 

 Society in 1S83; and of the Linnean Society in 1887; 

 he was also a fellow of London University, and 

 the recipient of honorary degrees from Oxford, 

 Cambridge, and other universities, including that 

 of his native city, Bristol. 



SIR 



IV 



11. THOMPSON, K.B.I-:. 



SIR WILLI \ M HENRY THOMPSON, who 

 was a passenger on the R.M.S. Leinster 

 when she was torpedoed in the Irish Channel on 

 the morning of October 10, was a son of the late 

 William Thompson, of Granard, Co. Longford. 

 lie was educated at the Dundalk Institution and 

 it Oueen's College, Belfast, and was a graduate 

 in medicine of the Royal University of Ireland. 

 \fter the outbreak of war, when the question of 

 food supply became of paramount importance, he 

 was able to give valuable help to the Royal 

 Society's Committee on Food, of which he was a 

 member. He became scientific adviser to the 

 Ministry of Food shortly after its formation 

 under Lord Devonport, and was made a Knight 

 of the Order of the British Empire in January last 

 in recognition of his services. 



Thompson's first posts in medical education 

 were demonstratorships at U/niversity College, 

 Gal way, and at the School of Anatomy, Trinity 

 College, Dublin. In 1893 he was appointed Dun- 

 ville professor of physiology, Queen's College, 

 Belfast, as successor to the late Prof. Redfern. 

 On the retirement of Prof. J. M. Purser in 1892 

 he was elected King's professor of the Institutes 

 of Medicine, Trinity College, Dublin. 



Thompson's scientific publications may be 

 divided into several periods. The esults of work, 

 ■ ommenced at University College, London, in 

 1S92, under the guidance of Sir E, Sh; rpe} Schafer, 



NO. 2557, VOL. I02] 



on de-enei ations resulting from lesions of the 

 cortex of the temporal lobe appeared in th£ 

 lournul of \niitomy and Physiology , vol. xxxv. 

 Papers dealing with the nervous mechanism 

 governing limb veins, and with the influence 01 

 atropine and morphine on the secretion of urine, 

 which appeared in Du Bois Revmond's Archijp 

 and in the Archiv fur' Anatomie und Physiologies 

 were the outcome of work in the Leipzig Physio- 

 logical Institute. He published in a series oj 

 papers, down to the year (90Q, the investigations 

 which he carried out at the Sorbonne Physiological 

 Laboratory, and at Oueen's College, Belfast, on 

 the effects on the circulation and on renal activity 

 of peptone injection's. A paper on the diuretic 

 effects of sodium chloride, which brought forward 

 evidence in support of Bowman's theory, belongs 

 to this period. 



After these papers, and as a result of work com- 

 menced in the physiological department at Mar- 

 burg and continued at Heidelberg, Thompson's 

 lines of research became ; more chemical. He 

 attacked problems . which were receiving close 

 attention from Prof. Kossel — namely, those deal- 

 ing with the physiological action of protamines 

 and of their cleavage products, from this period 

 onwards, during his tenure of the Dublin chair, 

 his work developed along these lines. A long 

 series of very important papers concerning crea- 

 tinine and arginine metabolism appeared in the 

 Journal of Physiology and in the Biochemical 

 Journal. 



For some years before the outbreak of war 

 Thompson had been instrumental in gathering 

 together a vast amount of statistical material 

 dealing with the food supplies of Ireland and the 

 dietary of the poorer classes. 



, A scientific colleague who was associated for 

 a time with his work at the Ministry of hood 

 writes: — "The very, great value of Sir Henry 

 Thompson's work as scientific adviser to the 

 Ministry of Food can only be appreciated by those 

 who had an opportunity of observing the patience 

 ■and care with which he attacked every problem 

 about which the authorities desired information." 



Recently Sir Henry Thompson had been en- 

 gaged in a series of investigations on the amount 

 of work performed in different occupations, and 

 the efficiency of the worker when so employed. 

 He spent a short period in the Institute for Experi- 

 mental Medicine in Petrograd, and afterwards 

 published an English translation of the lectures on 

 the work of the digestive glands delivered by Prof. 

 Pavloff in 1897. The translation appeared in 1902, 

 with the addition of a lecture by the translator on 

 the passage of food through the alimentary canal. 



The Lord Chancellor of Ireland, in a speech in 

 support of a fund for the victims of the Leinster 

 disaster, referred to Sir Henry's simplicity and 

 earnestness of character, and said that in all 

 human probability his journey to England would 

 have been the last in his official capacity, as he 

 had just been transferred to the Food Control 

 Department in Dublin. 



