viii 



Society. For many years he was a most active and influential 

 member of the Council of King's College, London. During the 

 session 1857-58 he was President of the Pathological Society. In 

 1868 he became the first President of the Clinical Society, and 

 in his inaugural address he impressed upon the Society, with his 

 customary good sense and grace of style, the supreme importance 

 of an endeavour to obtain "more exactness of knowledge, and there- 

 fore more direct and intelligent purpose, and more successful aim in 

 what is really the end and object of all our labours — the application 

 of remedies for the cure and relief of disease." 



During the last ten years of his life he had retired from the active 

 practice of his profession, but he continued to take great interest in 

 all its concerns. His three latest essays on Zymotic Diseases, on 

 Hydrophobia, and on Small-pox and Vaccination, were republished 

 in a small volume in 1879, when he was on the verge of his ninetieth 

 year ; yet in these latest products of his pen there is no evidence that 

 age had dimmed his intellect or lessened his command of graceful and 

 expressive language. 



After Sir Thomas Watson had retired from the Chair of the 

 College of Physicians, he always attended the annual meeting for 

 the election of President. The last occasion on which he appeared 

 was a few months before his death, at the second election of Sir 

 William Jenner to the Presidency. That meeting was rendered 

 memorable from the circumstance that, in the absence of the 

 Senior Censor, Sir Thomas Watson was called upon, as the senior 

 Fellow present, to deliver to the newly elected President the insignia 

 of his office ; and when he got up to walk towards the President's 

 chair the whole of the assembled Fellows rose as one man to show 

 their respect and affection for their venerable ex-President. Notwith- 

 standing his great age he enjoyed his usual good health, spending the 

 greater part of the summer and autumn of 1882 with his daughter 

 and his son's family, partly at the sea-side, and partly at his son's 

 house at Reigate. On Sunday, the 22nd October, soon after attending 

 the morning service at Reigate Church, he was seized with slight 

 paralysis of the left side. He calmly remarked to a medical friend 

 who visited him soon after, " this is the beginning of the end," and so 

 it proved. The paralytic symptoms soon increased and confined him to 

 his bed. He retained his consciousness until within the last two days 

 of his life, though his power of speech had latterly become much 

 impaired. At length, on the 11th December, he sank into a slumber, 

 and so, near midnight, came the final rest for which he had longed and 

 prayed. 



Thus passed away one of the wisest and best of men, and one 

 who, by universal consent, was regarded as the most complete illus- 

 tration of the very highest type of a physician. His own lectures 



