August 5, 1909 



A A TURE 



16: 



University of Aberdeen, but in 1841 he was unani- 

 mously elected to the Chandos chair in St. Andrew's. 

 In the same year he published his important paper, 

 " On the Relation between Muscular Contraction and 

 the Nervous System," whereby he made a contribu- 

 tion to a controversy then already quite a century 

 old — as to whether the irritability of muscle was or 

 was not " inherent." The great Haller had taught 

 it was inherent (the " vis insita "). Robert Whytt, 

 professor of medicine at Edinburgh just a hundred 

 years before Reid's time, had been a strenuous oppo- 

 nent of the doctrine of inherent irritability. Follow- 

 Boerhaave, the leader of the Batavian school, who 

 had trained so many of the professors of Edinburgh, 

 Whytt considered that his experiments confuted the 

 opinions of Haller. When Reid took up the subject 

 in 1834, it was still a controversy. 



lieid, using frogs, demonstrated :— 



(i) That the muscle of a nerve-muscle preparation, 

 fatigued by stimulation through its nerve, could still 

 contract when it was stimulated directly. 



(2) That a muscle, the nerve of which had been 

 cut, would not waste away, provided it was " daily 

 exercised by grdvanism." 



He even then pointed out the now obvious thera- 

 peutic application of this latter fact. His position 

 was : irritabilitv is indeed inherent, but the muscle 

 must be constantlv in use in order not to suffer from 

 " dis-use atrophy." 



.\mongst his collected papers we find one " On 

 Sensational and Emotional Reflex Actions," from 

 which we may conclude that Reid had grasped the 

 essence of the conception of reflex action in such a 

 way as to see that the presence of consciousness need 

 not make the action any the less truly " reflex." 



After going to St. Andrews, Prof. Reid published 

 two long papers on the epidemic of fever in Edin- 

 burgh in 1836. He began to study the marine biology 

 of the bay, and papers on polyps, molluscs, and 

 meduscC were, between 1844 and 1847, communicated 

 to the " Philosophical Society of St. Andrews," a 

 societv still existing. 



In 1844 John Reid was married to Miss .Ann Blyth, 

 of Edinburgh. Their two sons died in infancy; their 

 two daughters died before their twenty-fifth year; his 

 widow, who was married to a Mr. Foster, survived 

 him more than forty years. 



Prof. Wilson, his biographer, describes Reid's ap- 

 pearance in these words : — "Tall, with a strong figure, 

 diminished in height by a stoop acquired by so much 

 bending over books, dissections, and microscopes, his 

 complexion fresh and even ruddy, his forehead ex- 

 pansive, his eyes small, but of a bright black ; his 

 hair, which matched his eyes, was worn long." 



By August, 1848, it had become evident that Reid 

 was suffering from cancer of the tongue and throat. 

 On August 31, at Prof. .Simpson's, 52 Queen Street, 

 Edinburgh, John Reid underwent an operation at the 

 hands of his friend, Mr. (later Sir) William Fer- 

 gusson ; Goodsir. James Duncan, and Hughes 

 Bennett (his old pupil) assisting. On November 29 

 a second operation was considered necessary ; this was 

 carried out at Prof. Goodsir's, 55 George Square, by 

 Duncan, Spence, and Goodsir. For a third time 

 (January i, 1849) did poor Reid submit to the knife; 

 he warned them about admitting air into the veins 

 of the neck ; they could not have forgotten that he 

 had written on " Death by Admission of Air into 

 the Venous .Svstem." Doomed at forty. Prof. Reid, 

 after visiting Keswick and Innerleithen, returned for 

 the last time to his house in North Bell Street, St. 

 Andrews (now re-named Greyfriars Garden). On his 

 death-bed he collected all his published papers in a 

 large octavo of 659 pages. He had the courage to 



NO. 2075, VOL. 81] 



review a work by Hughes Bennett on "Cancer." 

 His sufferings were extreme : morphia and the newly- 

 discovered chloroform alone could assuage them. The 

 end came none too soon on July 30, 1849. 



In the " Life of John Reid " (Edinburgh, 1857) 

 Prof. Wilson tells us that he attended the funeral on 

 a " singularly bright and beautiful day." 



We who know the old city have seen such days, 

 rare indeed, but memorable in their rare beauty when 

 they come. We can so well picture the sad, slow pro- 

 cession from the Town Kirk to its goal within 

 the ruins of the noblest of Scottish cathedrals; there, 

 amongst green graves, they laid John Reid to rest 

 where the murmur of the everlasting sea makes moan- 

 ing music through the roofless fanes. 



.Scotland has produced greater anatomists, patho- 

 logists, zoologists, and physicians than was John Reid, 

 but I question whether, having regard to the limita- 

 tions of his scientific environment and to the imper- 

 fections of the methods and of the technique with 

 which he worked, anyone would undertake to deny 

 his right to be considered one of the most original 

 and prescient physiologists of purely Scottish birth 

 and training. 



I venture to believe that in this year of centenary 

 commemorations no man of science will grudge John 

 Reid his own. D. Fr.aser Harris. 



The collection of fossil Brachiopoda formed by the late 

 Mr. J. F. Walker, of York, has been presented to the 

 British Museum (Natural History) by his executors, Mrs. 

 Walker and Mr. Gelson Walker. It consists of several 

 thousand specimens arranged in groups to illustrate the 

 variations of species and the gradation of several so- 

 called species into each other. It therefore supplements 

 the Davidson collection, which was bequeathed to the 

 museum in 1885. It is especially rich in material from 

 the English Jurassic and Cretaceous formations, to which 

 Mr. Walker devoted much attention ; but it also contains 

 important series of specimens from other English strata, 

 besides several small collections for comparison from the 

 European continent. The greater part of the collection 

 will be kept for reference in the original cabinets, but 

 more than a hundred important specimens, described and 

 figured in Davidson's " Monograph of the British Fossil 

 Brachiopoda," will be placed in the exhibition cases of 

 the public gallery. 



Mr. W. R. Boeltf.r writes 10 urge the institution of 

 a people's " Arbour Day " in October for the purpose of 

 planting fruit trees along roadsides as they are in some 

 parts of Germany. From a report issued by the Minister 

 of Agriculture of Saxony it appears that the department 

 in charge of these trees made a profit of 12,000/. during 

 iqoS from a countryside corresponding to our Black 

 Country. As, however, the system of road maintenance 

 in Germany differs completely from that followed in 

 England, similar success can scarcely be anticipated here, 

 where the roads are controlled by numerous district and 

 county authorities. Farmers object to trees on the road- 

 side near arable land, and road surveyors in general dis- 

 like trees, because the highway does not dry up well 

 under them after rain. Even when permission has been 

 obtained to plant fruit trees along roadside waste in 

 some districts, it will be necessary to appoint officers 

 whose duty it is to protect the trees and promote their 

 satisfactory growth. We are afraid that few local authori- 

 ties are likely to add to their responsibilities by under- 

 taking the care of young trees along the roadside, much 

 as we are in sympathy with Mr. Boelter's suggestion. 



