Ill 



summary of minute and laborious studies. The characteristic of all this 

 part of his work was in his devotion and immense labour to determine 

 the questions which he set himself. Perhaps he overestimated the 

 relative importance of some of them ; but even if he did he should hardly 

 be charged with fault ; rather his example may be studied as a protest 

 against the greater and much more common fault of thinking that facts 

 are easy to be established. He will probably always enjoy the rare honour 

 of having settled some things so certainly that they will never need to be 

 investigated again. 



It may be doubted whether we had in our Society a man of stronger will 

 for work than Sibson. He never flinched from any duty; he never 

 tried to make it easy : when he saw a duty to be done he looked to see 

 how large it could be made, how manifold in detail ; and he did it all. 

 No man followed better the advice of the king Preacher, " "Whatsoever 

 thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." And surely no one ever 

 worked harder with as light and genial a heart. Who of us can forget 

 the gentleness and enthusiasm of his social life, his fervent greetings, 

 his words of affection, the sincerity of which was proved by the whole 

 tenour of his pure unselfish life ? He was a many-sided man, and on all 

 sides good ; a true lover of nature and of art, his house was adorned 

 with a fine collection of engravings, and especially "Wedgwood ware, of 

 which he was a critical judge : his collection of "Wedgwood medallions of 

 scientific men (unfortunately dispersed by sale after his death) was probably 

 the most complete ever got together, and was especially rich in repre- 

 sentations of Fellows of the Eoyal Society. 



Dr. Sibson married, in July 1858, Sarah Mary, younger daughter of 

 Peter Aime Ouvry, Esq., of East Acton, a lady of highly cultivated mind 

 and of rare artistic accomplishments. His death was, as he expected, 

 sudden. He died at Geneva on the 7th of September, on his way home 

 from a vacation tour ; and when we might have thought of him as coming 

 to us again, with his enthusiastic narratives of adventure or of some 

 study in rare art, abrupt news came that his career was finished *. 



* Dr. Sibson's chief papers, besides those already referred to, may be found in the 

 • Philosophical Transactions,' 1846, 1848, vols. 1 36, 138 ; the ' London Medical Gazette,' 

 2nd ser., vols, iv., vi., vii., viii., x. ; ' London Journal of Medicine/ vol. i. ; 'British Medical 

 Journal,' 1873; ' Pathological Transactions,' vols, ii., iii., x. ; ( Trans, of British Medical 

 Association,' vol. xvii., 1850; Eeynolds's 'System of Medicine/ art. "Pericarditis, 

 Endocarditis" (these were completed after the labour, it is said, of three years, just 

 before his death). The 'British Medical Journal' of the current year contains the 

 Harveian Lectures on Bright's disease, which Dr. Sibson had prepared for delivery not 

 long before his death. 



