xliv Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



year was appointed Pathologist and Lecturer on Pathology in the same 

 institution. He resigned his appointments at St. Mary's in 1902, and under- 

 took the direction of the Cancer Laboratories at the Lister Institute. 



Meanwhile he had become interested in Trypanosomes, the organisms 

 which produce Sleeping Sickness. In this connection his unrivalled skill in 

 microscopic technique stood him in good stead. He was the author of a 

 number of papers on this subject, and he became an active member of the 

 Tropical Diseases Committee of the Royal Society. 



In 1907 he extended the sphere of his pathological work by assuming the 

 duties of Pathologist to the Zoological Gardens, which afforded him addi- 

 tional opportunities of gaining valuable experience. He held this appoint- 

 ment for ten years, finally resigning it as a protest against certain admini- 

 strative changes of which he felt himself unable to approve. Plimmer 

 communicated the results of his investigations in a considerable number of 

 papers which appeared in various medical and scientific periodicals both at 

 home and abroad, his work for the most part relating to Cancer, Trypano- 

 somes, and kindred subjects. He was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal 

 Society in 1910, and always displayed a keen interest in everything that 

 concerned its welfare. Amongst the valuable services he rendered to the 

 Society, one is especially deserving of mention. He undertook and carried 

 out the overhauling, sorting, and cataloguing of the valuable engravings in 

 the possession of the Society, a work of no small magnitude. It was 

 fortunate, indeed, that the task, which to him was a labour of love, should 

 have fallen into such judicious and capable hands. It was largely owing to 

 his energy, and to his wide knowledge of matters pertaining to art, that so 

 magnificent a series of portraits have been made accessible, with a convenient 

 index, to the Fellows. 



A Chair of Comparative Pathology was founded for a term of years at the 

 Imperial College of Science and Technology by an anonymous donor, and 

 Plimmer was appointed to fill it. He held this post until his untimely death 

 in June, 1918. During his tenure of this Chair he delivered a remarkable 

 series of lectures on Immunity, a branch of research in which he had long 

 been keenly interested. He had been on terms of personal intimacy with the 

 chief of the great Continental workers in this subject, from Pasteur onwards, 

 and his brilliant exposition will long be remembered by those who were 

 privileged to listen to him. As a teacher he was remarkably successful. His 

 unusual cast of mind, his wide and varied knowledge, together with a singular 

 personal charm, combined to exert a strong influence on the students who 

 were so fortunate as to come into contact with him. Behind the professor 

 there was always the kindly sympathetic personality of the man himself, who 

 was richly endowed with wisdom in those things which really matter in life. 



He had, for some years before his death, taken a prominent part in the 

 administration of various learned societies. He was President of the Royal 

 Microscopical Society in 1911-12, and he served on many scientific com- 

 mittees both at home and abroad. On the outbreak of the war he at once 



