I 



Sir WILLIAM G0WEE3, 1845-1915. 



Sir Willtam Gowers, whose death occurred on May 4th. 1915, was a 

 distinguished member of the medical profession, and in particular a neuro- 

 pathologist of world-wide reputation. 



He was born in London on March 20, 1845, so that at the time of his 

 death he had completed the allotted span of three score years and ten. 

 He was educated at Christ Church School, Oxford, and received his medical 

 education at University College, London, where he was a favourite pupil of 

 Sir William. Jenner, to whom in his early professional career he acted as 

 private secretary. 



Sir William Gowers became a member of the Eoyal College of Surgeons 

 in 1867, and took his degree of M.B., London, with First Class Honours 

 in Medicine, in 1869, and M.D., with Gold Medal, in 1870. He was 

 elected a Fellow of the Eoyal College of Physicians in 1879. His first 

 honorary appointment was that of Assistant Physician to the National 

 Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic, with which institution he became 

 specially identified, and which he made his principal field of research and 

 teaching. He was also appointed Assistant Physician and ultimately full 

 Physician and Professor of Clinical Medicine in University College Hospital. 



Apart from his neurological work he contributed several articles on 

 diseases of the heart and blood-glandular organs to Eeynolds' ' System of 

 Medicine.' In 1878 he invented a haeinoglobinometer, or instrument for 

 estimating the percentage of haemoglobin in the blood. This was based on the 

 comparison of a tint of an accurately graduated solution of the blood with a 

 standard solution of picrocarminate of ammonia corresponding to a solution 

 of haemoglobin of 1 in 100. The degree of dilution required to obtain the 

 same tint represents the percentage of haemoglobin to that of normal blood. 

 This method has been generally superseded by Haldane's modification, in 

 which the standard solution is a 1-per-cent. solution of haemoglobin saturated 

 with carbon monoxide. The blood to be tested is similarly treated by passing 

 a stream of coal gas through it. 



Gowers also devised an improvement of Hayem's ha?mocytometer, or 

 instrument for counting the blood corpuscles, by ruling the micrometric 

 squares on the bottom of the cell instead of on the eyepiece of the microscope. 

 This method, though giving fairly accurate results, has now been generally 

 superseded by the more simple Thoma-Zeiss instrument. 



In 1897 he published a work of ' Medical Ophthalmology ' which, with its 

 beautiful illustrations, all drawn by bis own hand, did much to popularise the 

 routine use of the ophthalmoscope in medical diagnosis, so strongly advocated 

 by his eminent colleague Dr. Hughlings Jackson more than ten years before. 



Sir William Gowers' first important work in neuropathology was his 



