XXVI 



Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



37 years since it was published. They described also the peculiar arrange- 

 ment of the blood-vessels in the islets of Langerhans. 



In Physiological Chemistry Lea's research was of a somewhat fragmentary 

 nature. This, no doubt, was partly due to illness, which broke the train of 

 his thought. 



In 1883 he, in conjunction with Green (then a beginner), published some 

 observations on fibrin-ferment. Their chief conclusion was that fibrin- 

 ferment was not a globulin. But they pointed out that certain facts were 

 not easily explained on this view, and they proposed to investigate them 

 later. Lea gave up the investigation. Green carried it on and it led to the 

 first big step towards our knowledge of the part played by calcium salts in 

 coagulation. 



Most of Lea's other papers were also concerned with the action of ferments. 

 In conjunction with Dickinson he showed the untenability of Pick's 

 improbable theory that the mode of action of clotting ferments was 

 fundamentally different from that of ordinary digestive enzymes. 



In 1885 he extended Museulus' observation's on the isolation of urea- 

 ferment from the organism of decomposing urine. This work was an early 

 recognition of the importance of intra-cellular enzymes. 



In 1900 he introduced the method of observing the effect of digestive 

 ferments in dialysing tubes kept in constant movement in running water, so 

 that the products of digestion were removed almost as soon as they were 

 formed. Whilst later discoveries as to the fate of the bodies removed by 

 dialysis showed that Lea's method was a very partial imitation of the natural 

 digestive processes, he brought out clearly the influence of the removal of 

 digestive products on the rapidity of ferment action, and his general views, 

 though not in accord with what is now known, served at the time as a 

 stimulus to a broad consideration of the relation of digestive products to 

 metabolism. He published also a paper on spectrophotometry. 



Lea suffered from a progressive spinal disease which early interrupted his 

 work and eventually compelled him to abandon it. For some years he led 

 an active outdoor life. He was captain in the Volunteer Force, went to 

 Aldershot for special courses on Army Supply, and regularly took part in the 

 competitions of the National Kifle Association at Wimbledon. He had 

 marked musical taste, inherited from his father, and was one of the founders 

 and the first Treasurer of the Cambridge Musical Club. More or less 

 of the Long Vacation he spent in cruising round the coast. These and other 

 activities were gradually curtailed, and in 1899 he left Cambridge and retired 

 to Sidcup in Kent. There he still followed, to a certain extent, the develop- 

 ment of Physiology, and corrected the proofs of the later editions of Huxley's 

 'Lessons in Physiology' and Smith's 'Veterinary Physiology.' He died 

 quietly on March 23, 1915. He left a wife and one son. It was with Lea's 

 ardent approval that his son, at the outbreak of war, at once applied for and 

 obtained a commission in the army. 



Lea had to submit to seeing his early promise of high scientific activity 



