Charles Stewart. Ixxxlll 
Museum at St. Thomas’ Hospital. The performance of the duties of that 
post indicated a talent for museum work hardly inferior to his powers as 
lecturer and teacher and one which continually improved by use during his 
long occupancy of the Curatorship of the College of Surgeons Museum. 
The duties, however, of that important office were, at the time of Prof. 
Stewart’s appointment, as they had been in times past, not merely those of a 
museum superintendent. The Conservator of the Museum discharged also 
the duties of Hunterian Professor and was expected to deliver courses of 
lectures. Until the last few years of his tenure of the Conservatorship, 
Stewart gave annually a course of six or nine lectures upon various topics, 
though connected, as was natural, with the extensive collections under his 
eontrol. The first series, delivered in 1885,* were upon the “Structure and 
Life History of Hydrozoa”; subsequently he lectured upon “ Auditory 
Organs” (in 1886 and 1887), on “Phosphorescent Organs” (in 1890), on 
“ Alternation of Generations” (in 1899), on the “ Integumental System ” (in 
1889, and again in 1896), and on a variety of other subjects, the lectures 
generally, or at any rate frequently, laying special stress upon recent 
acquisitions to the Museum. 
The wide outlook upon biology implied by these lectures and by Stewart's 
full appreciation of John Hunter’s idea of a museum is perhaps responsible 
for the comparatively small amount of detailed zoological discovery 
published by him. Endeavouring to give the most hberal interpretation to 
the idea of “Physiological Series,’ Prof. Stewart devoted himself to 
illustrating copiously from the vegetable as well as from the animal kingdom 
the facts upon which anatomical and physiological generalisations were 
based. This left but little time for the writing of memoirs upon new 
anatomical facts; we find, therefore, that but little share was taken by 
Stewart during these years in the affairs of learned societies, whether as 
a contributor or as an office holder. For four years, however (1890—1894), 
he held the important position of President of the Linnean Society, but his 
contributions to the publications of that Society had been made in earlier 
years. 
The zoological work accomplished by Stewart, though not large in amount, 
and chiefly published during the “’seventies,” contained some important new 
matter. His main claim to distinction as a zoologist rests upon his work 
upon the Echinodermata. He discovered in the genus Cidaris certain 
organs, subsequently called after him “Stewart’s organs,” believed to be of 
a respiratory nature, but whose functions are not yet certain. Other papers 
upon the Echinodermata are: “On the Spicules of the regular Echinoidea,” 
‘Trans. Linn. Soc., 1866; “ On the minute Structure of certain Hard Parts in 
the Genus Cidaris,’ ‘Quart. Journ. Mier. Sci., 1871; “ On some Structural 
Feature of Parasalenia, ete.,” ‘ Micr. Journ., 1880, and one or two others. 
His most recent memoir published in the ‘Journal of the Linnean Society’ - 
* The writer is indebted to Mr, R. H. Burne for this and other information. 
