1920-21.] Obituary Notices. 187 
those who nowadays have their duties much more explicitly laid down. 
At this time the Public Health Act had just been placed on the Statute- 
Book, and the amount of organising work that fell to Dr Fraser may be 
more readily realised when it is observed that not only did the adminis- 
trative area extend over fully one half of Cheshire, but that it was divided 
into twelve districts under twelve boards of guardians both rural and 
urban, and that the medical officer of health had several inspectors and 
assistant inspectors under him, whose work was entirely guided by him, 
and who constantly reported directly to him on all matters of importance. 
His time was thus from the first occupied by the public service, and he 
never undertook any private practice in the district. Sir Thomas Fraser 
himself always laid stress on the importance of this time, not only because 
of its opening up a new field of work to him, but also because the com- 
paratively regular duties enabled him to indulge in a certain amount of 
open-air recreation, such as working in his garden and even riding to 
hounds on occasion. To this he attributed the fact that his health, which 
had been considerably strained by the arduous tasks of original research, 
was much improved, and the relaxation enabled him on his return to 
Edinburgh to undertake further research with a better prospect of being 
physically able to stand the strain of the work. Another factor which 
greatly assisted him in the discharge of all these duties was the hearty 
co-operation of his wife, Lady Fraser, a daughter of the Rev. R. Duncan, 
whom he married in 1874, without whose constant care for over forty-five 
years he would scarcely have been able to complete the tasks to which he 
devoted his life. 
On many occasions Sir Thomas Fraser was accustomed to say that he 
thought that in all research work there is a very considerable element of 
chance in the success of the undertaking. But whether this is so or not, 
it is a striking fact that nothing that he touched failed to become interest- 
ing and valuable, and, without denying the possibility of a certain degree 
of good fortune in the way in which his topics developed, a great deal 
more is attributable to the sound judgment with which he selected the 
various subjects of his investigations, and the extreme conscientiousness 
and ability which he displayed in even the smallest details of the research. 
In 1877 the death of Sir Robert Christison made a vacancy in the chair 
of Materia Medica, and Dr Fraser at once became an applicant. By that 
time his contributions in various branches of research in materia medica 
had become extensive, and his application contained the titles of no less 
than twenty-one important contributions, as well as references to numerous 
papers which were written for the Edinburgh Medical Journal and other 
