
1904.]  Annwersary Address by Sir Wiliam Huggins. 3 
classes and creeds praised him. His private tastes were simple ; his chief 
relaxations, chess playing, music, and novel reading. In the words of the late 
Bishop of Oxford :—“The Provost is an extraordinary man. The first day I met 
him I was most struck by his gracious courtesy, the second day by his learning, 
the third day by his humour, and every day by his humility.” 
The Fates are inexorable; there may be long delay, but always at last the 
thread is cut. In midsummer our oldest Fellow, in point of election as well 
as of age, passed from us:—Sir John Simon, the pioneer of modern sanitary 
science. What Lister did for surgery, and Pasteur for bacteriology, Simon 
may be said to have accomplished for sanitation. Very early he perceived 
clearly and developed the true nature and mode of dealing with contagious 
emanations proceeding from the sick, establishing a doctrine and practice 
which afterwards received their direct proof and further development in the 
_ growth of the new science of bacteriology. Deeply grateful to his memory, 
we mourn one who by his life-work conferred incalculable benefit upon the 
whole civilized world. 
Simon commenced the study of medicine in 1833, and attended both 
St. Thomas’s Hospital and the recently established King’s College. It was 
in 1848 that his attention was definitely directed to that branch of the 
profession with which his name will always remain famous, and which indeed 
he may almost be said to have founded, through his election to the newly- 
constituted post of Medical Officer of Health to the City of London. Seven, 
years later a Central Board of Health was created, on which Simon represented. 
medicine: When the functions of the Board were transferred to the Privy 
Council, he became adviser to the Government on all sanitary and medical. 
matters. It is not possible on this occasion to indicate, even broadly, his. 
strenuous work through a long life for the public good. His writings consist. 
mainly of his numerous official reports, together with a volume published in 
1857, entitled “ Papers on the History and Practice of Vaccination,” followed. 
in the next year by a “ Report on the Sanitary State of the People of 
England,” which brought out for the first time the wide variations which exist. 
in the local incidence of diseases. His great work on “ English Sanitary 
Institutions ” appeared in 1890. In 1878 he was elected President of the 
Royal College of Surgeons; he was the recipient of numerous honours. 
from scientific bodies at home and abroad. At the Jubilee in 1887 he 
received from Queen Victoria the distinction of K.C.B. These public 
recognitions were the outward signs of the universal respect and honour 
accorded him by all men. His memory will ever remain green in the history 
of sanitary science. 
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