Obituary notices of fellows deceased. 



Sir John Eric Erichsen, Bart., Surgeon Extraordinary to the 

 Queen, who died on September 23, 1896, will, without doubt, take 

 rank amongst the most distinguished surgeons of the century. There 

 mast be very few of the present generation of practitioners of surgery 

 in English-speaking countries who have not come under his influence, 

 at any rate indirectly ; for his book on the Science and Art of 

 Surgery, which made its first appearance in 1853, at once took a 

 foremost place as the principal text-book of that subject, a place 

 which in successive editions, to the number of ten, it has maintained 

 ever since. Nor has it failed to be translated into most European 

 languages, and even, it is said, into Chinese. 



Erichsenwas descended, on the father's side, from a Danish family, 

 whose importance is still testified in Copenhagen by the palace 

 which bears the same name. On his mother's side he sprang from a 

 Somersetshire stock — the Govetts. He was born on July 19, 1818, 

 in Copenhagen, but was educated in England. After the termina- 

 tion of his school career, he entered as a student at University 

 College, where Liston was then the chief surgeon, and where also he 

 came under the strong personal influence of William Sharpey, who, 

 as in so many other cases, early discovered the scientific bent in young 

 Erichsen's character, and was instrumental in directing it into a 

 useful field. Having, like many other professional men, more leisure 

 in the early period of his career than he ever had in the later, 

 Erichsen devoted himself to the study of physiology, and for a 

 time taught the subject at the Westminster Hospital Medical School. 

 He acted in 1844 as Secretary to the Section of Physiology of the 

 British Association, and was the working member of a small com- 

 mittee appointed by the Association to undertake an experimental 

 enquiry into the mechanism and effects of asphyxia, and the pre- 

 vention and treatment of that condition. His researches on this 

 subject were published in 1845, and his labours were recognised by 

 his b^ing awarded a gold medal, of the value of 50 guineas, by the 

 Royal Humane Society. 



In those days, no education in medicine and surgery was considered 

 complete unless it had been supplemented by residence in Paris, and 

 attendance upon the cliniques of the great French physicians and 

 surgeons. Accordingly we find Erichsen pursuing his studies in 

 that capital, and, amongst other things, present on the first occasion 

 of the performance of a colotomy, by Amussat. 



VOL. LXl. b 



