December 19, 191 2] 



NATURE 



439 



UR. C. THEODORE U'lLLIAMS, M.]\0. 

 A \ /■£ record with regret the death of Dr. Charles 

 » » Theodore Williams, on December 15, at 

 the age of seventy-four years. He was the second 

 son of Dr C. J. B. Williams, F.R.S. , physician 

 to University College Hospital and consulting 

 physician to the Brompton Hospital. He was 

 educated at Harrow and Pembroke College, 

 Oxford, and afterwards studied medicine at St. 

 George's Hospital and in Paris. He took the 

 degree of M.A. in 1862, M.B. in 1864, and M.D. 

 in 1869. In 1867 he was appointed assistant 

 physician to the Brompton Hospital, and became 

 full physician in 1871 and consulting physician in 

 1894. 



Dr. Theodore Williams became a member of 

 the Royal College of Physicians in 1865, and was 

 elected a fellow in 1871, councillor 1891-93, and 

 censor 1899-1900. He was an honorary fellow of 

 Pembroke College, Oxford, and a member of the 

 Athenaeum Club. He was an active member of 

 nearly all the London medical societies, and was 

 president at various times of several of them. 

 He was twice president of the Royal Meteoro- 

 logical Society. He was an honorary member of 

 the Societe Francaise d'Hygifene and of the 

 American Climatological Society. HeJnad the dis- 

 tinction of being elected one of the four presidents 

 of the International Congress on Tuberculosis, held 

 at Washington, the others being Koch, l.andouzy, 

 and Trudeau. 



Dr. Theodore Williams had a large practice as 

 a physician and a high reputation as a specialist in 

 consumption, in which he had a very wide and 

 varied experience. In collaboration with his father, 

 he was the author of a work entitled " Pulmonary 

 Consumption : its Modes of Arrest, Treatment and 

 Duration," 1871. A second edition, revised and 

 enlarged, being mainly rewritten by Dr. Theodore 

 AVilliams, was published in 1887. 



Dr. Theodore Williams was specially interested 

 in the effects of climate in the treatment of pul- 

 monary disease, and his first book, on the 

 " Climate of the South of France," was published 

 in 1S67, when comparatively little was known of 

 the Riviera as a health resort. In 1869 he visited 

 Davos and examined many cases there, and re- 

 ported very favourably on the results obtained by 

 residence in the high altitudes. Later he incor- 

 porated his observations in his lectures on aero- 

 therapeutics delivered before the Royal College of 

 Physicians, 1893. 



In 191 1 he delivered the Harveian Oration before 

 1 he Royal College of Physicians, choosing as his 

 subject " Old and New Views on the Treatment of 

 Consumption." 



Dr. Theodore Williams was an active worker in 

 the cause of prevention of consumption, and was 

 one of the founders of the National Association, 

 of which at the time of his death he was vice- 

 chairman of the Council. He was one of the 

 founders of the Queen Alexandra Sanatorium at 

 Davos, and one of the most active workers iti 

 the establishment of the Brompton Sanatorium at 

 NO. 2251, VOL. 90] 



Frinley and the King Edward VH. Sanatorium at 

 Midhurst. For his work in connection with the 

 latter. King Edward gave him the honour of the 

 M.V.O. 



He contributed many papers to the transactions 

 of the medical societies and to the medical journals. 

 In 1868 he married Mary, daughter of Dr. John 

 Gwyn Jeffreys, F.R.S., a well-known authority on 

 conchology. He is survived by his wife, whose 

 bereavement has called forth general sympathy. 



NOTES. 

 Information has been received at the Meteorological 

 Office that the first prize of 2000 marks in the com- 

 petition recently organised by the German Meteoro- 

 logical Society for the best discussion of the results 

 of the international investigation of the upper air has 

 been awarded to Mr. Ernest Gold, superintendent of 

 statistics at the office, for his essay, entitled "The 

 International Kite and Balloon Ascents." 



Mr. C. J. Gahan, first class assistant in the depart- 

 ment of zoology of the British Museum (Natural 

 History), has been appointed to the newly created post 

 of keeper of the department of entomology. Hitherto, 

 for administrative purposes, there has been an entomo- 

 logical section of the department of zoology ; in future 

 there will be a special department of entomology 

 under its own keeper. 



Prof. Jacques Hadamard, professor of analytical 

 and celestial mechanics at the College de France, and 

 professor of mathematical analysis at the Ecole Poly- 

 technique, Paris, has been elected a member of the 

 Paris Academy of Sciences in the section of geometry, 

 in succession to the late Prof. Henri Poincare. 



The death is announced, in his seventy-second year, 

 of Mr. A. Beldam, first president of the Institute of 

 Marine Engineers. 



Dr. William J. Howarth, medical officer of the 

 county of Kent, has been appointed medical officer 

 of the City of London in succession to Dr. William 

 Collingridge, who recently retired. 



Mr. E. J. LooMis, for fifty years an assistant in 

 the American Nautical Almanack Office, died recently 

 in Washington at the age of eighty-four. In 1889 

 he was a member of the United States eclipse expedi- 

 tion to the west coast of Africa. The list of his pub- 

 lications includes "Wayside Sketches," "An Eclipse 

 Party in Africa," and "A Sunset Idyll and Other 

 Poems." Mr. Loomis was the father of Mrs. Mabel 

 Loomis Todd, who has collaborated with her husband. 

 Prof. David Todd, of Amherst, in much of his astrol 

 nomical work. 



The death is reported, in his sixty-second year, of 

 Mr. Edwin Smith, an American astronom"er knd 

 geodesist of repute. He had spent the greater part 

 of his career in the service of the United States Coast 

 and Geodetic Survey. In 1874 he was placed in 

 charge of the United States Government expedition 

 to observe the transit of Venus at Chatham Islands in 



