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CHARLES STEWART, 1840—1907. 
CHARLES STEWART was born at Plymouth in 1840 and died in London on 
September 27, 1907. After obtaining the qualification of M.R.C.S. in 1862, 
he returned to Plymouth, where his father and grandfather had been medical 
practitioners, and for a short time followed the same profession. In 1866, 
however, he left Plymouth for London, and from that time devoted himself 
entirely to Zoological and Physiological teaching and investigation. For 
nearly twenty years he spent his chief energies in lecturing and teaching at 
St. Thomas’ Hospital and at Bedford College, besides, we believe, doing 
much incidental lecturing in the provinces. At St. Thomas’ he held 
successively the lectureship in Comparative Anatomy, to which he was 
appointed in 1871, and a joint lectureship in Physiology (with Dr. John 
Harley) which he obtained ten years later. The necessity of earning an 
income set him upon this path, which was, however, pursued with skill and 
SUccess. 
There is no doubt that Prof. Stewart was one of the best lecturers in 
London. ‘This opinion was indeed fully recognised by his nomination to 
deliver many Friday evening lectures at the Royal Institution and _ his 
appointment to the Fullerian Professorship of Physiology in that Institution 
from 1894 to 1897. Prof. Stewart’s abilities as a lecturer were not 
exhibited in the way of oratorical display and the use of gesture. His merit 
was a smooth and even flow of language, simple in character and at times 
not merely unconventional bui even familiar. Combined with this was an 
obvious interest in, and mastery of, the subject with which he was dealing, 
which carried conviction and aroused sympathy. He possessed also in a high 
degree that faculty so necessary to a lecturer upon biological subjects, the 
power to illustrate his statements upon the blackboard. The present writer 
heard him lecture upon fishes in the Zoological Society’s House at Hanover 
Square on an occasion of afternoon lectures inaugurated by the Society, but 
since discontinued. 
Discarding altogether the use of lantern or wall diagrams, Prof. Stewart 
depicted with rapidity and accuracy upon the blackboard coloured representa- 
tions of certain tropical fishes in which even the iridescent hues of those 
creatures were skilfully suggested with simply a few coloured chalks. 
Prof. Stewart’s life work was, however, accomplished during his tenure 
of the office of Curator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. 
Though mainly devoted to teaching before his selection to the headship of 
that incomparable Museum, he had held the minor office of Curator of the 
