290 
NATURE 
[May 13, 1915 

to be successful, must be based on scientific re- 
search, and the want of intimate association 
between the manufacturers and the workers in 
science. The advisory committee which has been 
already appointed by the Board of Trade for the 
consideration of many emergency questions which 
have arisen, should be replaced by a permanent 
Standing Committee of the nature of an intel- 
ligence department serving the large and growing 
chemical industries of the country in the same way 
that the Commercial Intelligence Department 
serves merchants and traders. It was urged that 
the chemists of the country generally consider it 
imperative on national grounds that the develop- 
ment of the new organisation should be pushed 
forward with as little delay as possible; the ex- 
pansion ‘of the chemical industries of the country 
requires intimate co-operation between men of 
science and manufacturers, and, in view of the 
leeway which has to be made up, a considerable 
increase in the number of research workers is 
necessary in order to hasten progress and to insure 
the permanent retention of new manufactures after 
the war. The speakers insisted upon the need for 
a more intelligent appreciation of the significance 
of original scientific work by the Government, the 
urgency for increased facilities of communication 
between manufacturers and scientific chemical 
experts, and the fact that an intelligence depart- 
ment of the kind contemplated would, under 
Government auspices, form a clearing house 
for all the vast variety of scientific and techno- 
logical chemical material which is at our disposal ; 
such a department would form a link between the 
university or college, in which the chemical techno- 
logist must be trained, and the industries which 
would be of immense advantage to both teacher 
and student. The use which might have been 
made of the expert knowledge of such a body 
during the recent preliminaries to the foundation 
of British Dyes, Ltd., was also indicated. 
Mr. Runciman, in reply to the deputation, 
pointed out that the Board of Trade fully appre- 
ciated the extent to which national progress is 
dependent upon the utilisation of the services of 
men of science, and the importance of provision 
for the thorough training of a very much 
larger number of industrial chemists than are at 
present available. He agreed with the views ex- 
pressed as to the need of closer co-operation 
between manufacturers and scientific workers and 
teachers. The war had shown the weakness of 
our position in certain important respects, and he 
was in full sympathy with the general views ex- 
pressed by the deputation. The actual proposals 
would receive careful and sympathetic considera- 
tion. 
Mr. Pease informed the deputation that the par- 
ticular problems to which it had directed attention 
had been present to the Board of Education for 
some time past, and that a scheme had been ap- 
proved in principle by which substantial additional 
assistance would be given by the Government to 
scientific education and industrial research. He 
hoped that, though the funds immediately avail- 
able might not be large, they would be sufficient 
NO. 2376, VOL. 95] 
; Medal in Medicine. 
| Royal College of Physicians in 1879. 
| elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. 

| . . . . 
to enable an organisation to be brought into being 
| at an early date which would be capable of expan- 
| sion afterwards. 
Mr. Pease further expressed 
his appreciation of the offer of assistance and 
advice by members of the societies represented at 
the deputation. 
Sir William Crookes expressed the thanks of 
the members of the deputation for the sympathetic 
reception which they had met. 
SIR WILLIAM R. GOWERS, F.R.S. 
HE death of Sir William Gowers on May 4, 
at the age of seventy, deprives English 
medicine of one of its most illustrious ornaments. 
The state of his health—which suffered an almost 
complete eclipse by the death of his wife two 
years ago—had led to his retirement from active 
practice, so that the news of his death cannot 
have been quite unexpected. Yet it will be widely 
regretted, and the value of his work on the 
scientific side of medicine will perhaps be more 
completely realised than if his death had been de- 
layed for some years. 
William Richard Gowers was born on March 
20, 1845. He was educated at Christchurch 
School, Oxford, and was for a time apprenticed 
to Dr. Simpson, a medical practitioner in Essex. 
He began his medical education at University 
College Hospital, London, and he had a brilliant 
career there, and at the University of London. He 
qualified M.R.C.S. 1867, took his M.B. degree in 
1869, and his M.D. in 1870, winning the Gold 
He became a Fellow of the 
He was also 
He re- 

ceived the honour of knighthood in 1897. 
Gowers’s great work in medicine was in system- 
atising the important class of nervous diseases, 
and in bringing into relation clinical facts with 
pathological changes. His early works were 
especially remarkable in this respect, and his 
clinical teaching—which was peculiarly stimulating 
to qualified medical men and senior students— 
always had this as its keynote. He would discuss 
| fully the symptoms of what a patient complained, 
the clinical signs associated with these, and finally 
lay down definitely and clearly the changes in 
the nervous system which his experience had 
taught him were associated with these signs and 
symptoms. 
it is not necessary here to enumerate the various. 
medical works which he published, or to emphasise 
their importance. Several of them were trans- 
lated into more than one European language. 
His chief work was the “ Manual of Disease of the 
Nervous System,” published in two volumes, the 
first in 1886 and the second in 1888. 
Like many busy men he had, or made time for, 
hobbies. He was an artistic and skilful etcher, 
and had a great interest in, and an intimate know- 
ledge of mosses, and also of ordinary wild flowers. 
He was also interested in archeology and archi- 
tecture, and he himself investigated the remains. 
of some of the old Suffolk churches, and described 

