124 
Sn Memoriam. 
SIR MICHAEL FOSTER, 
olGelébs, HIG SES IDECsIlng IDSs, ILILsIDb5 inter 
1836-1907. 
(PLATE XIX.) 
Ir is with every sincere regret that we have to place on record 
the death of Sir Michael Foster, which took place as we were 
going to press with our last issue. In Sir Michael, Britain loses 
one of her leaders in scientific thought. He occupied a position 
in the nation’s scientific welfare to which it will be exceedingly 
difficult to find a successor. Asa physiologist he was the best 
known, but he was one of those who had so many interests, and 
took a leading part in such a variety of different channels, that 
‘he will be missed by very many indeed. Such was the 
esteem in which he was held by his fellow naturalists, that in 
1899 he occupied the Presidential chair of the British Association. 
Another position of importance was that of the Secretary of the 
Royal Society, which he occupied for twenty-two years. 
In both London and Cambridge, Sir Michael accomplished 
much as a teacher of Physiology, and in this way his influence 
has been far greater than can possibly be estimated. 
In 1898 he was president of the Yorkshire Naturalists’ 
Union, and many of our readers will remember the cheering 
Address he delivered at the Union’s Annual Meeting at Scar- 
borough, which was printed in this journal for July, 1899. He 
then took for his subject ‘Integration in Science,’ and after 
describing in detail the various ways in which science was 
specialised, so that even the Fellows of the Royal Society were 
‘no longer able to understand one another’s speech,’ he urged 
the Union to see that the old type of naturalist did not die out. 
‘It is for you,’ he said, ‘to gather and preserve the bits of 
knowledge which help to bind together diverging inquiries 
carried on in other places; it is for you to keep free from the 
rust of disuse the simpler way of asking questions from Nature 
without the complicated machinery which others use; the simpler 
way, which often brings answers of no little moment in their 
right places; the simpler way, which others may be apt to 
overlook.’ 
His contributions to literature are mostly relating to his 
favourite subject—physiology. He also helped in the editing of 
the well-known ‘Scientific Memoirs of Thomas Henry Huxley.’ 
Naturalist, 
