:xxviii Obituary Notices of Fellovjs deceased. 



obtained a similar post at St. Mary's Hospital, and finally, about twenty years 

 ago, he was appointed Honorary Director of the Physiological Laboratory at 

 the University of London, with the title of Professor. "With characteristic 

 keenness he had explored the buildings at South Kensington in which the 

 University had just been housed, saw the possibilities of using profitably a 

 suite of disused rooms, and, with the help of friends, secured them for the 

 useful purpose to which, through his efforts, they were ultimately applied. 



Waller's name became known to the physiologists chiefly through his work 

 on the electrical phenomena of the nervous system and of the heart. In this 

 work his ingenuity in the devising of experiments and apparatus came to the 

 fore. In 1913, he summarised his many years' work on the heart in the 

 Oliver-Sharpey lectures given before the Eoyal College of Physicians. I 

 cannot do better than quote from a letter by Sir Thomas Lewis, F.E.S.,* the 

 foremost of present day electro-cardiographers, regarding the value of this 

 branch of research. He wrote : — 



" May I add a few words of tribute to the memory of Prof. Waller, whose 

 death will be much regretted by both physiologists and physicians in this 

 country and in many other lands. He was a man of unusually keen intellect, 

 and has been for many years a notable figure in British physiology. His 

 brilliant powers of exposition will long render his demonstrations at the 

 Physiological Society memorable. His early work on electro-physiology was 

 extensive, thorough, and is well known. He was the first to show that the 

 ■currents set up by the beating of the human heart can be recorded ; he was 

 the first to obtain a human electro-cardiogram ; this has been the main 

 though by no means his sole contribution to the science of experimental 

 medicine. The discovery long preceded the introduction of the string galvano- 

 meter, and was the more remarkable in that it was accomplished in the 

 eighties." 



The electrical phenomena in other living structures also attracted his 

 attention ; he published numerous papers on the currents found in the retina, 

 nerves, muscles, skin, etc., and also in plants. They are summarised in his 

 book " Signs of Life from the Electrical Aspect," published in 1903. The 

 high estimation in which his work was held was shown by his election as 

 F.E.S. at the comparatively early age of 36, in 1892. 



During his investigation of nerve and muscle, he made observations on the 

 ■effects of anaesthetic vapours and gases on their electrical responses, and thus 

 he became interested in clinical anaesthesia, and in lectures, demonstrations 

 and discussions insisted on the necessity of accurate dosage in the adminis- 

 tration of these dangerous means of alleviating suffering, especially in 

 reference to chloroform. He invented an apparatus for controlling the 

 percentage of the anaesthetic in the air a patient breathed, for he was 

 convinced that deaths under chloroform could be prevented with proper care. 

 In 1901, a Committee was established by the British Medical Association to 

 go thoroughly into the matter, and Waller became one of its most earnest 

 * 'Brit. Med. Journ.,' 1922, vol. i, p. 459. 



