A 



Obituary Notices of Felloivs deceased. 



of the animal kingdom independently derived from the Choanoflagellata, but 

 it was to his researches, more than to any others, that we are indebted for 

 the final separation of the group from the Coelenterata on the one hand, and 

 their dissociation from the phyla with three germ layers on the other. 



In the course of his post-graduate studies abroad Minchin came under the 

 influence of Butschli, who was at the time busily engaged in his famous 

 researches on the physical structure of protoplasm. This experience gave 

 him a special interest in the Protozoa, and led to the important series of 

 researches which were published during the second period of his career. In 

 1894 he gave to English readers an authorised translation of Butschli's great 

 work on Microscopic Foams and on Protoplasm (A. and C. Black), and nine year^ 

 later he wrote the article on Sporozoa for Sir Kay Lankester's ' Treatise on 

 Zoology.' These publications established his reputation as a protozoologist 

 with a wide knowledge of the literature of the subject and a marked capacity 

 for dealing with its problems with philosophical insight ; but it was not until 

 1907 that he published, in conjunction with Dr. H. B. Fantham, his first 

 paper of original research in Protozoology, a description of a new genus of 

 Sporozoon — Rhinosporidium — from the septum nasi of man. 



*In 1905 Minchin was appointed a member of the Sleeping Sickness 

 Commission of the Eoyal Society, and was sent out to Uganda to investigate 

 the relation of the tsetse fly (Glossina palpalis) to the trypanosome of 

 sleeping sickness {Trypanosoma gambiensc). He had married Florence Maud 

 Fontain in 1903, and his wife accompanied him on this expedition. He 

 began his work by a study of the anatomy of the fly, and wrote an account 

 of his observations for a communication that was published in the 

 ' Proceedings of the Royal Society ' (vol. 76). In this paper he demonstrated 

 the extraordinary skill he possessed in the study of the anatomy of small 

 insects, a skill that was afterwards shown again in his account of the anatomy 

 of the rat flea (Ceratopliyllus fasciaius), published by the Quekett Micro- 

 scopical Society in 1915. 



Soon after his return from Uganda the opportunity was afforded him of 

 devoting the greater part of his time to research by his appointment as 

 Professor of Protozoology in the Lister Institute. Freed from the cares of 

 teaching elementary students and of administration, he threw himself 

 whole-heartedly into the investigation of the Protozoa of disease, and soon 

 raise! himself to the rank of the first of the protozoologists of his time. 

 Continuing the researches he began in Uganda he discovered all the stages 

 of the encystment of Trypanosoma grayi in the proctodseum of the fly, and 

 from this was led to the conclusion that the infection of a vertebrate host 

 may in some cases occur not by the inoculative method, but by contamination, 

 a conclusion subsequently confirmed by other members of the Commission by 

 other methods. Having once taken up the fascinating, but complex and 



* I am greatly indebted to Dr. H. M. Woodcock of the Lister Institute for material 

 assistance in writing the account of this part of Minchin's career. 



