OBITUARY NOTICES OF FELLOWS DECEASED. 



Tee Rev. De. Peyton Blakiston was the youngest son of Sir Mathew 

 Blakiston, Bart., of Sandybrooke Hall, Derbyshire. He was born in 

 1801, and was educated first at Eton, afterwards at Trinity College, 

 Cambridge. From thence he migrated to Emmanuel College, where 

 he was elected to one of the Dixie Fellowships. Having taken holy 

 orders he became vicar of Lymington, and held that preferment for 

 several years. His health, however, broke down, and symptoms of 

 pulmonary disease having manifested themselves, he resorted to Paris, 

 and placed himself under the care of the celebrated Louis, who told 

 him that he could not expect ever to be able to discharge the duties 

 of a public preacher. With a decision that was characteristic of him, 

 he at once resolved to abandon the clerical profession and adopt that 

 of medicine. For this he had always manifested a predilection, having 

 whilst at Ly mington established and devoted himself to the support of 

 a provident dispensary. 



He resigned his living, and with a wife and children returned to 

 Cambridge, and subsequently to Paris, and devoted himself with 

 great energy and determination to medical studies. As soon as he 

 obtained his diploma of M.B. at Cambridge, he established himself 

 at Birmingham, where he speedily acquired the confidence of the 

 public and great popularity with his professional brethren. As a 

 member of the Philosophical Institution of Birmingham, he delivered 

 lectures on chemistry and physical science, and did good service to 

 his profession by the application of his scientific knowledge to the 

 elucidation of the laws of sound and the use of the stethoscope, which 

 was then obtaining the general notice of the profession. In 1841 

 he took his degree of M.D. at Cambridge, and became physician to 

 the Birmingham General Hospital. At Birmingham he published 

 a Treatise on the Influenza of 1837, and a volume of " Practical 

 Observations on Certain Diseases of the Chest and on the Principles 

 of Auscultation." This volume he dedicated to his old master, Louis, 

 and his friends and former pupils, the late Dr. W. Allen Miller and 

 William Bowman. This volume was a valuable contribution to 

 medical science and practice, and displayed not only a well trained 

 philosophical mind, but also an acute careful clinical observer. In 

 1843 Dr. Blakiston became a Fellow of the Royal College of 

 Physicians, and in the same year was elected a Fellow of the Royal 



vol. xxix. b 



