XIV Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 
by means of “ticketing” houses, that is, specifying on the door of each room 
the number of inhabitants who were permitted to dwell init. During this 
period Gairdner wrote many important papers, on sanitary questions, on 
hospital management, on the training of nurses, on dietetics both as regards 
the healthy and the sick, and on kindred subjects. In 1871, he resigned the 
oftice of medical officer of health into the able hands of James B. Russell, 
one of his own most distinguished pupils, who carried on for many years the 
work of the Sanitary Department in Glasgow, which is now one of the most 
complete in the world. Its initiation owed much to Gairdner and he had 
the satisfaction of watching its progress. 
Gairdner in many directions showed marked literary gifts. He was a good 
classical scholar, of a type not common now-a-days in.the medical profession, 
and he read Virgil and Horace and the New Testament in Greek, as one of 
his almost daily pastimes. Now and again he published, in addition to 
works bearing specially on medicine, isolated lectures and essays, such as 
‘The Physician as Naturalist, a well-known volume which is a key to his 
character. Always animated by a thoroughly scientific spirit, he took 
a wide view of the functions of a physician, as one whose duty it was to 
investigate the natural phenomena of disease, and uphold the dignity of his 
calling. In his writings, as in his conversation, one always felt conscious of 
his lofty ideals and of his transparent sincerity and honesty of purpose. 
It would not be right not to advert to another marked characteristic. He 
was a man of sincere piety who ever lived in his daily life under the 
shadow of the Unseen. Broad and catholic in his religious views, there was 
always present the spirit of reverence, a generous appreciation of the views 
and claims of others, a desire to view every question fairly and impersonally, 
and a high ideal of the nobility of life. 
J. G. McK. 
