TO 5 
SEPTEMBER 28, 1916] 
the use of a graphic curve which betrayed the 
inadequacy of the sphygmograph to follow the 
finer movements of the artery, yet how many 
brilliant discoveries have arisen from accidents 
of manipulation or interpretation! To have dis- 
covered the means of controlling one of the most 
cruel ills to which man is subject is perhaps the 
laurel wreath amid the many memorials of one 
who, in his humanity, would have prized this 
above all rewards. 
By academic and official decorations Lauder 
Brunton was richly distinguished; but perhaps, - 
in his loyal and patriotic heart, the honour of 
none of these was to be compared with the glory 
of his younger son, a promising Cambridge medi- 
cal graduate, who last year gave his life on the 
field of battle for his country—a glory, but also a 
sorrow which, falling but a brief five years after 
Lady Brunton’s death, deepened the shadows of 
his latter days. Happily his elder son, also on 
military service, and his devoted daughters were. 
still spared to him. iA. 
The death of Sir Lauder Brunton on Sep- 
tember 16, in his seventy-third year, has deprived 
the world of a great physician, and brought 
sorrow to a wide circle of friends. Largely by 
his vivifying studies and teaching, pharmacology 
has become a definite branch of science. Prac- 
tical medicine depends on physiology, pharmaco- 
logy, and pathology, and all three tend more and 
more to become subdivisions of the all-embracing 
science of chemistry. In no departments of the 
healing art is the influence of laboratory methods 
more apparent than in those directed to the study 
of disorders of digestion and diseases. of the cir- 
culation; and in both these directions Sir Lauder 
Brunton was a pioneer worker. He had the 
clearest conceptions of clinical facts, and pos- 
sessed to an unusual degree the practical quality 
of being able to apply extensive knowledge of 
physiological medicine to the work of the hour. 
His stimulating personality will be widely missed 
by his professional brethren as well as by many 
who have benefited by his work and advice. 
Thomas Lauder Brunton was born at Hiltons 
Hill, Roxburgh, in 1844, and received his medical 
training at the University of Edinburgh, where he 
had a distinguished academic career, and gradu- 
ated M.B., C.M. with honours in 1866, receiving 
also the gold medal for his thesis. In the follow- 
ing year he became B.Sc., in 1868. he obtained 
the M.D., and two years later the D.Sc., in the 
meanwhile having also studied at Paris, Vienna, 
Berlin, and Leipzig. Settling in London, he 
became lecturer on materia medica at the Middle- 
sex Hospital in 1870 and assistant physician at 
St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1875, to which 
- school he remained attached as lecturer, physi- 
cian, and consulting physician. 
Early in his career Brunton’s inclinations 
leaned towards the scientific side of medicine, and 
at the early age of thirty he was elected F.R.S. in 
recognition of his admirable work on the physio- 
logy of digestion and secretion, on the chemical 
NO. 2448, VOL. 98] 
NATURE 73 
composition of the blood, and on the actions of 
the two drugs, digitalis and mercury. 
Brunton’s post at St. Bartholomew’s carried 
with it the lectureship on materia medica and 
therapeutics, and he turned his attention to the 
effects of medicines and instituted many experi- 
mental investigations on the actions of drugs 
upon himself and upon animals. In 1885 he pub- 
lished his well-known book on “Pharmacology, 
Materia Medica, and Therapeutics,” which passed 
through many editions in this country and abroad. 
This appeared at an opportune moment, and 
largely owing to his work and writings pharma- 
cology became separated from materia medica 
and established as a branch of physiology. 
In 1886 he was appointed a member of the 
Commission to report upon Pasteur’s system of 
inoculation for hydrophobia, and in 1889 a member 
of the Nizam of Hyderabad’s Chloroform Com- 
mission. For the latter a considerable amount 
of experimental work was carried out and a 
valuable report issued, though no very definite 
conclusions as to the action of chloroform were 
arrived at. In the meantime, Brunton had 
become one of the best-known consulting physi- 
cians in the country, and in the art of treatment 
he was most resourceful. He introduced a new 
class of remedies, the vaso-dilators, into medi- 
cine, and by the use of amyl nitrite for angina 
pectoris was the first to employ a remedy because 
its physiological action was opposed to the 
pathological condition existing in this disease, viz. 
rise of blood-pressure. 
In 1900 he was knighted, and nine years later 
was given a baronetcy, and he was the recipient 
of many honours from universities and societies 
at home and abroad. He was also Gulstonian 
and Croonian lecturer and Harveian orator of the 
Royal College of Physicians of London. Several 
works emanated from his pen, notably the “In- 
troduction to Modern Therapeutics,” illustrating 
the connection between the chemical structure and 
physiological action of drugs, “Disorders of 
Assimilation,” and ‘‘Therapeutics of the Circu- 
lation.” 
Sir Lauder Brunton, outside his professional 
work, was keenly interested in all schemes in 
favour of national health, of school hygiene, of 
physical culture and military training, in the 
furtherance of which he gave bountifully of his 
time and energies. 
NOTES. 
Geo.ocists will regret to hear of the death of 
Mr. R. J. L. Guppy at his home in the island of 
Trinidad on August 5, and within a few days of 
celebrating his eightieth birthday, Mr. Guppy having 
been born in London on August 15, 1836. In early 
life he qualified as a civil engineer, and afterwards 
travelled through Australia, Tasmania, and New 
Zealand. On joining his family in Trinidad in 1859, 
he took part in the construction of the Cipero Rail- 
way, but later becoming interested in the educational 
work of the colony, he was appointed Chief Inspector 
of Schools. Mr. Guppy, however, will be better re- 
