xliii 



it was clearly proved that the specific poison of that disease could be 

 distributed in water pipes, as the result of an intermitting water- 

 service. 



In 1880 Buchanan was appointed to the post of principal medical 

 officer to the Local Government Board, and during the twelve years 

 which followed he made it the aim of his administration that all 

 advice rendered by his department should have a definitely scientific 

 basis. This principle he instilled into all his co-workers, and he was 

 careful to employ the small annual graut made to the Medical 

 Department for auxiliary scientific research to this end. In this way, 

 research of the highest scientific value, as, for example, the investiga- 

 tions of Dr. Klein and Dr. Sidney Martin into the life-history of the 

 specific organisms of disease, was undertaken side by side with that 

 epidemiological field-work into the causes of epidemics, which forms 

 so large a portion of the labours of the medical inspectors attached to 

 the Public Health Department of the State. In this way alone 

 Buchanan rendered services of an eminent kind, not only to the State 

 bu t to science, and his labours in this respect were deeply appreciated 

 by co-workers in both hemispheres. 



In April, 1892, Dr. Buchanan retired from his official post, and on 

 this occasion he received the honour of knighthood. But he had 

 already undertaken to serve as a member of the Royal Commission 

 on Tuberculosis, and to this and other self-imposed duties he now 

 devoted himself. On the death of Lord Basing he became chairman 

 of the reconstituted Royal Commission, and the report which was 

 only issued just before his death is known to have been largely com- 

 piled by him. 



During his official career Sir George Buchanan was in 1882 

 admitted F.R.S. ; he became President of the Epidemiological 

 Society ; he was elected to the Senate of the University of London ; 

 and on his retirement he received the honorary LL.D. of Edinburgh, 

 and became a censor of the Royal College of Physicians. His death, 

 which occurred suddenly during convalescence from a surgical 

 operation, took place on the 5th of May, 1895. 



R. T. T. 



General James T. Walkek, C.B., F.R.S. , died on the 16th of last 

 February, having reached his seventieth year. The son of a Madras 

 civilian, who was for some time Judge at Cannanore, Walker was 

 born in 1826, and, having passed at Addiscombe, he was appointed 

 to the corps of Bombay Engineers in 1846. He did good service 

 during several of the wars in which our armies have been engaged in 

 India. At the siege of Multan he performed an act of gallantry, 

 which, in later times, would probably have secured for him the 

 Victoria Cross. He served at the battle of Guzerat, and in the sub- 



