XXV11 



WALTEB HOLBKOOK GASKELL, 1847-1914. 



Walter Holbkook Gaskell was born on November 1, 1847, at Naples, 

 where his parents were passing the winter for the sake of his father's health. 

 His father, John Dakin Gaskell, was a barrister — a member of the Middle 

 Temple — who followed his profession for a few years and then retired to 

 private life. His mother was Anne Gaskell, second cousin of his father. 

 Gaskell as a boy lived with his father at Highgate, and attended Sir Koger 

 Cholmeley's School at that place. At school he worked chiefly at 

 mathematics, but had considerable interest in natural history, and appears 

 to have made more than the usual schoolboy collections connected with that 

 subject. 



He came up to Cambridge in October, 1865, when he was not quite 18, 

 as a member of Trinity College. In his third year he was elected to a 

 Foundation Scholarship, and proceeded to the BA. degree in 1869, being 

 26th Wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos. After taking his degree he 

 studied for a medical career, and in the course of his preliminary scientific 

 work he attended the lectures on Elementary Biology and Physiology given 

 by Michael Foster, who came to Cambridge as Prselector in Physiology at 

 Trinity College in 1870. Foster led a considerable number of his early 

 pupils to a scientific career. He first aroused an interest in scientific 

 problems and then, sometimes gradually, sometimes suddenly, suggested 

 that there was no better course in life than that of trying to solve them. 

 Gaskell, as far as my recollection serves, was influenced in the latter way. 

 In 1872 he went to University College Hospital, London, for clinical work. 

 On his return to Cambridge, Foster, in the course of a conversation with 

 him, suggested he should drop his medical career for the time and try his 

 hand at research in physiology. Gaskell (I believe) adopted on the spot 

 this suggestion, and instead of proceeding to the M.B. degree went to 

 Leipzig to work under Ludwig (1874). 



At this time Lud wig's laboratory was much the most important school of 

 physiological research in Germany or elsewhere. It attracted students 

 from all parts of the world. All the work was planned by Ludwig, who 

 had an almost unerring sense of the lines of work which would yield 

 profitable results. To this the success of the school was mainly due. Its 

 popularity was increased by the method of procedure adopted by Ludwig. 

 This has been described by Sir T. Lauder Brunton, who was with Ludwig 

 in 1869-70. The experiments were carried out by Ludwig with the pupil 

 as assistant, Ludwig wrote the paper and then published it, occasionally 

 as a conjoint work, but more usually in the name of his pupil. As I have 

 heard from Gaskell, the method was the same in his time. The work given 

 him was a continuation of that on the innervation of skeletal muscle already 



VOL. LXXXVIII. — B. / 



