Febeuaey 25, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



263 



quest of our president, is now offered to the 

 memory of our collaborator and friend ? 



Harrison Allen was born in Philadelphia 

 April 17, 1841. His parents were Samuel 

 Allen and Elizabeth Justice Thomas. His 

 ancestors accompanied William Penn, and 

 on his father's side he was descended from 

 Nicholas Wain, distinguished in the early 

 history of Philadelphia. As a boy Harri- 

 son was interested in Natural History, and 

 at or before sixteen he went on an extended 

 walking and camping trip in western Penn- 

 sylvania with associates of like tastes, 

 amongst whom was George Horn, also lately 

 deceased. Although he would have pre- 

 ferred pure science, financial considerations 

 led him to study medicine, including den- 

 tistry. 



After gaining his M.D. at the University 

 of Pennsylvania, he was on duty for a time 

 at the Blockley Hospital in his native city. 

 On the 31st of January, 1862, he was ap- 

 pointed Acting Assistant Surgeon U. S. A., 

 and Assistant Surgeon, July 30, 1862, serv- 

 ing in hospitals and in the defences of 

 Washington until the acceptance of his 

 resignation, December 8, 1865. He then 

 ranked as Brevet Major. It was during the 

 winter of 1862-63 that I first made his ac- 

 quaintance at a meeting of the Potomac 

 Side Naturalists' Club, attended also by 

 Elliott Coues, Theodore Gill and others. 

 Our army service did not throw us together, 

 and I little thought then how dear Dr. 

 Allen was to become to me in later years ; 

 for ten summers, indeed, we have been near 

 neighbors at Nantucket, and I have been 

 looking forward to the time when less pres- 

 sure of work would permit me to enjoy his 

 society more fully. 



Dr. Allen now practised his profession 

 with diligence and success. His dental 

 education facilitated specialization in re- 

 spect to the air passages, and in 1880 he 

 was President of the American Laryngo- 

 logical Association. Of his strictly medical 



and surgical publications (numbering about 

 fifty) nearly all relate more or less directly 

 to his specialty. 



But while he earned his living by medi- 

 cine, it was in science that he lived, and it 

 is this side of his career that interests us 

 more as members of this Association. The 

 subject of his thesis at graduation was 

 ' Entozoa Hominis,' probably suggested by 

 his beloved teacher, Joseph Leidy. His 

 first scientific paper appeared in July, 1861, 

 in the Proceedings of the Academy of Nat- 

 ural Sciences, and treated of certain bats 

 brought from Africa by the explorer Du 

 Chaillu ; besides the two editions of his mon- 

 ograph of the bats of North America, pub- 

 lished by the Smithsonian Institution in 

 1864 and 1893, respectively ; to the same 

 highly specialized mammals were devoted 

 thirty of his scientific papers ; just before 

 his death he completed articles on the Glos- 

 sophaginse and on the genus Eetophylla. 

 Yet, while remaining throughout life true 

 to his first scientific love, Dr. Allen pub- 

 lished valuable notes or memoirs upon 

 many other subjects, notably the joints, the 

 muscles, locomotion and crania ; only a 

 week before he died he handed over to 

 the Wagner Institute of Science a study of 

 the skulls from the Hawaiian Islands, much 

 more elaborate than the previous one of the 

 Florida crania. To him also was appro- 

 priately conceded the privilege of dissect- 

 ing and describing the remarkable Siamese 

 Twins. 



Dr. Allen was emphatically, and in a 

 double sense, dkfine anatomist. So far as I 

 know he seldom used the compound micro- 

 scope, and availed himself little of the mul- 

 tifarious devices, chemical and mechanical, 

 of modern histology: But his dissections 

 of delicate organs were simply exquisite, 

 demanding the most perfect training of hand 

 and eye. Yet his habitual devotion to 

 creatures of minor size did not deter him, 

 during the past summer, from offering to 



