11 



Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



study current bibliography. What strikes one most on glancing through the 

 long array, is the catholicity of Pfiiiger's tastes ; hardly any corner of the 

 wide physiological field was left untouched ; papers on histology, physiological 

 chemistry, physical physiology, metabolism, embryology, psychology, and even 

 philosophy are included, and he seldom touched a subject without illumi- 

 nating it. 



Pfliiger is perhaps best known for his epoch-making work on muscle and 

 nerve, and Pfiiiger's law, as it is called, is familiar even to the junior student. 

 His work on metabolism, where he entered tlie lists against Voit, of Munich, is 

 equally worthy of his repute, and although no one believes now in the 

 theories of either of these two extremists, Pfliiger had the great merit of 

 recognising and of making others recognise the importance of the cell in the 

 changes which food material undergoes before it is ultimately disposed of. 

 The substance glycogen always attracted a peculiar fascination for Pfliiger, 

 and the importance of his work in relationship to this material is universally 

 acknowledged. In the later years of his life, his most numerous and his 

 longest monographs dealt with this subject, either from the chemical point 

 of view or from the physiological aspect of its origin and fate. 



Pfliiger gathered around him a band of younger workers, and conveyed 

 to them much of his own enthusiasm. He set them to work at various 

 subjects in which he was interested, and often important investigations were 

 the result. Much of the work which issued from the Bonn laboratory on the 

 blood-gases was initiated in this way. Many of his pupils and colleagues 

 became his friends and enthusiastic admirers ; nevertheless Pfliiger could 

 not have been an easy man to get on with ; he would not brook any inter- 

 ference with his work and his ideas, and the differences in the laboratory 

 more than once were followed by the appearance of acrimonious articles and 

 the severance of association in work. 



The combativeness of Pfliiger's nature and his love of polemics constituted a 

 feature which was not wliolly admirable in his character. Professor Cyon, 

 however, who has recently written in Plhiger's Archiv an appreciation of his 

 master, is inclined to regard this characteristic as a sign of his strength ; he 

 tells us that Pfliiger prided himself on liis militant attitude, and regarded 

 controversy as the surest means of eliciting the truth on disputed problems. 

 One may also freely admit that although in such disputes Pfliiger tenaciously 

 maintained his views, lie was not so jircjudiced as to continue to hold them 

 wh(3ii he was convinced of tlie truth of the o})])osito opinion. For instance, 

 through a long series of pai)ers, the results of most laborious researches 

 pcrfoi'ined even down to details of quantitative analysis by his own hands, he 

 maintaineil that glycogen does not originate in tlie body from protein 

 material. Yet in one of his very latest papers he had to surrender this 

 position, liecause still further work had convinced liim he had l)(',on wrong. 



Ah the years of life advance, very f(!w escape that conservatism and distrust 

 of new ideas that mark the veteran thinker. I'erhaps Plltiger had as little of 

 this failing as any other man of tlie same age, but it was nevertlieless there. 



