IN AGO LE: 
Ted. 
May 27, 1886] 
years ago, together with Dr. Cunningham, to proceed to 
India in order to undertake, under the auspices of the 
Indian Government, a prolonged study of the causation 
of cholera, especially in regard to its reputed relation to 
parasitic organisms. At that time little was known or 
thought about Bacteria, and the public mind had been 
aroused by Hallier’s (now long-exploded) theory of a rice- 
fungus as the cause of cholera, just as more recently it 
has responded to Dr. Koch’s invitation to believe in the 
comma-bacillus. Dr. Lewis and his companion were 
authorised to visit Prof. Hallier at Jena and Prof. de Bary 
(in those days not attached to French Strasburg !) for 
the purpose of acquainting themselves with methods of 
mycetological research before proceeding to India. A 
few weeks was all the time allowed them for this visit, 
and consequently they took little to India excepting their 
own conscientious habits of work and that modicum of 
knowledge of microscopic ¢ecinzgue which was considered 
sufficient for the highest medical qualification in England 
in those days. Nevertheless these observers made most 
valuable and minute researches on the microscopic 
organisms present in the dejecta of cholera-patients, 
which were published by the Government of India. Dr. 
Lewis extended his researches into the general question 
of the presence of microscopic organisms in the blood 
and tissues of man in health and disease, and was led to 
some very interesting discoveries. His results were pub- 
lished from time to time by the Government of India, and 
were re-published as they appeared in the Quarterly 
Fournal of Microscopical Science. 
Dr. Lewis’s work was always remarkable for the ex- 
treme care with which positive results were asserted, and 
for the fairness with which the researches of predecessors 
in the same field were considered and discussed. His 
most remarkable discovery was that of the little nematoid 
worm occurring in the blood of persons suffering from a 
form of chyluria and elephantiasis, to which he gave the 
name /7/aria sanguints hominis. This discovery was pub- 
lished in 1872. Some years later Dr. Bancroft discovered 
in Australia the adult worm from which the brood of 
ninute blood-parasites is derived, and, still later, an un- 
successful attempt has been made by Dr. Patrick Manson 
to show that the young pass an intermediate stage of 
existence in the alimentary canal of gnats, which suck 
them in together with the blood of worm-infested persons. 
It is no small thing in these latter days to discover a 
new human parasitic worm of great pathological signi- 
ficance, and it was in recognition of this discovery, as 
well as in view of his important contribution to the dis- 
‘cussion of “the cholera-bacillus theory,” that the Council 
of the Royal Society in last April selected Dr. Timothy 
Lewis as one of the fifteen candidates to be submitted to 
the Society for election in next June. 
In regard to the question of the relation of bacteria to 
cholera and similar diseases, Dr. Lewis had a vast store 
of both published and unpublished observation. With 
characteristic caution and modesty, he had refrained from 
dogmatising on the subject. Working for twelve years in 
Calcutta, with daily access to cholera patients, he was 
_ thoroughly familiar with the several different forms of 
Bacteria which are to be found in the alimentary tract 
| and in the dejecta of choleraics. Unlike some of his 
_ recent successors in this line of research, Dr. Lewis was 
also familiar with the different forms of Bacteria which 
Occur in the Aea/¢zy human mouth and intestines, and in 
| potable waters. He was therefore able to demonstrate 
immediately on the publication of Koch’s figures of the 
so-called “ comma-bacillus” that this for (asserted by 
Koch to be peculiar to cholera evacuations) was nothing 
| more nor less than a Sfzrz//um broken by manipulation, 
and commonly to be found in the mouth of healthy 
persons. The importance of this contribution to the 
| controversy excited by Dr. Koch’s statements can- 
not be too highly estimated. Its accuracy was uni- 
versally recognised at once, and has never been called in 
question. Dr. Klein has since come to the conclusion 
that not only are organisms of the exact for of Koch’s 
cholera-comma abundant in the healthy saliva, as shown 
by Lewis, but that some of these forms have precisely the 
same physiological conditions of growth, and precisely 
the same action upon gelatine as Koch considered to be 
characteristic of those obtained from cholera evacua- 
tions. 
At the time of his death Dr. Lewis was carrying on in 
his laboratory at Netley an extensive series of culture 
and inoculation experiments, chiefly upon the Bacteria 
which occur in the alimentary canal of man. 
Those who enjoyed his personal friendship valued Dr. 
Lewis for his warm-heartedness no less than for the rare 
combination of enthusiasm with caution in his work which 
gives his published results a very special value. It is 
perhaps some satisfaction to his friends to know that he 
had heard of the recognition of his merits by the Royal 
Society Council before the commencement of the attack 
of inflammation of the lungs which so rapidly ran to a 
fatal termination. 1B. 1S Lp 
A SKETCH OF THE FPEORA OF SOUTH 
AFRICA 
ees this title we would draw the attention of 
botanists to a very able essay on the botanical 
regions of South Africa, contributed to the “ Official 
Hand-Book of the Cape of Good Hope” for 1886, by 
Harry Bolus, F.L.S., an accomplished botanist, who has 
devoted many years to the investigation of South African 
plants. 
That extra-tropical South Africa is one of the most 
varied botanical regions on the globe is a fact familiar to 
both botanists and gardeners, from the days of Linneeus,— 
who epitomised its richness in the expression, “ Ex Africa 
semper aliquid novi,’—and of the earliest cultivators of 
greenhouse plants, who were indebted to the Cape of 
Good Hope, far more than to any other regions of the 
globe, for what were, and till Japan and Australia eclipsed 
it, the prime favourites of the conservatory. There are 
those still alive who can remember the time when plant- 
houses were ornamented with little else than Cape 
Heaths, Pelargoniums (miscalled Geraniums), Polygalas, 
Proteas, Oxalis’, Mesembryanthemums, Everlastings, Sta- 
pelias, Irideee, and Cape bulbs innumerable, and when 
the illustrated horticultural serials of the day were either 
devoted to these, or contained figures of more of the 
plants of this than of any one other country. It is true 
that the cultivation or all but a very few of the heaths and 
geraniums has been abandoned for things of not greater 
beauty, and of far less interest, but this is due, not to 
want of appreciation, but in the case of some to their not 
being amenable to the treatment of the “ soft-wooded ” 
plants now in vogue, and of others to the fact that their 
flowering period—of the bulbs especially—is a very brief 
one, and that the flowers soon fade when cut. 
To return to the little essay before us: the attempt to 
define the South African regions of vegetation is not a 
new one; it had been essayed by Meyer and Drége, 
Zeyher, Griesebach, and others, but not successfully; and 
the author of the sketch under consideration is the first 
who has succeeded in presenting satisfactorily the salient 
botanical characters of that flora, as affected by, or in 
correspondence with, geographical and other physical 
conditions ; whilst he alone has given such vivid pictures 
of the vegetation of the different botanical regions he has 
defined, that any one with even an elementary knowledge 
of South African plants can fancy himself travelling over 
the ground. 
The two dominant features of the South African flora 
are, the number of orders, genera, and species that it 
contains, and the limitation of great groups of these 
