Ixxix 



John Davy was born at Penzance on the 24th of May, 1790 ; and he 

 died in his 78th year, at Ambleside, on the 24th of January last. He was 

 the youngest of five children, of whom Sir Humphry Davy, born twelve 

 years before him, was the eldest. He survived his brother thirty-nine 

 years ; and one of the most marked features in his character for the whole 

 of this period, and, indeed, of his life, was the well- deserved gratitude and 

 veneration with which he regarded that famous philosopher. His first 

 introduction to scientific life was made at the age of eighteen, in the La- 

 boratory of the Royal Institution, where his brother was then (1808) in 

 the zenith of his fame, lecturing and prosecuting chemical research. Dr. 

 Davy always considered the period of from two to three years during 

 which^he acted as an assistant to Sir Humphry as one of the happiest 

 and best employed of his life. On relinquishing this post he studied 

 medicine in Edinburgh, where he graduated in the year 1814, the same 

 year in which he was made a Fellow of this Society. From the year 1815, 

 up to the end of his life, he held various appointments in various parts of 

 the world in the Army Medical Department. He passed a life of great 

 activity, which was but little less varied than this short sketch will 

 show the incidents of his history to have been. He has left behind him 

 numerous papers on purely scientific subjects — chemical and biological ; 

 he has written the history of his brother's life, and has also edited his 

 works ; his medical experience has been embodied in a volume treating of 

 Army Diseases ; and he has written accounts, partly scientific, partly of 

 general interest, of the various countries — Ceylon, the Ionian Islands, and 

 the "West Indies — in which he was at different periods of his life stationed 

 in the course of his professional duties. The fact that the Royal Society 

 is now in course of publishing a Catalogue of Scientific Papers, renders it 

 superfluous to specify Dr. Davy's very numerous memoirs individually ; 

 and it will be the aim of this notice merely to give the main features of his 

 life in outline, and to mark only the chief points upon which his multifarious 

 labours threw light. 



The first remark which a glance at a list of his contributions to science 

 suggests, relates to the length of the period over which his activity in the 

 way of research extended itself. His first paper was published in 

 'Nicholson's Journal' for 1811, and contained the result of certain 

 iuTestigations undertaken in vindication of the doctrines taught by his 

 brother as to the simple nature of chlorine, or oxymuriatic acid, as it was 

 then named, and as to the incorrectness of the then current views of the 

 composition of hydrochloric, then known as "muriatic" acid. His last 

 paper, one **0n the Temperature of the Common Fowl," was read subse- 

 quently to his death before the Royal Society of Edinburgh this very year 

 1868. 



During a considerable part of these fifty-seven years Dr. Davy was on 

 actual service as a medical officer of the army. His services began in the 

 campaign of 1815, when he was attached to a General Hospital in Brussels ; 



VOL. XVI. h 



