Obituaries. 
7 
1919-20.] 
charming example of the best type of light literature. Under the 
pseudonym of “Jean Jambon” (John H.A.M.) he published in the late 
seventies Our Trip to Blunderland — a book written for the amusement 
of his own boys and frankly modelled on the classics of Lewis Carroll. 
The Scottish bench is rich in its memory of great lawyers who well knew 
the Horatian maxim, Dulce est desipere in loco. Sir J ohn may not be ranked 
with the greatest of these ; but few could show greater versatility in the 
multiplicity of interests and in the faculty for pure enjoyment of life. 
Sir John Macdonald retained his faculties in full activity to the end 
of his long life, having visited London on Committee work only the week 
before his last brief illness. He died in Edinburgh on May 9, 1919, on 
the very day on which the freedom of his native city was to have been 
conferred upon him in recognition of his many services to his country 
and to his King. 
R. C. Maclagan, M.D., F.R.C.P.E., was born in Edinburgh in 1839, 
and was the son of the late Sir Douglas Maclagan, Professor of Medical 
Jurisprudence in the Edinburgh University. He was educated at the 
High School, the University of Edinburgh, and at Berlin and Vienna. He 
practised as a physician in Edinburgh for a number of years, but finally 
became an active partner in the firm of A. B. Fleming & Co. of Edin- 
burgh and London, and was chairman for over thirty years. He was a 
keen volunteer and gained two silver cups for shooting. He was the 
author of several books on folk-lore and anthropological subjects, and 
communicated to our Society a paper on “Two Historical Fallacies: 
Heather Beer and Uisge Beithe.” He was elected a Fellow of the Royal 
Society of Edinburgh in 1869, and died on July 12, 1919. 
R. Sydney Mahsden, M.D., C.M., D.Sc., D.P.H., M.R.I.A., F.I.C., was 
the son of the late Robert Marsden, manufacturer, Sheffield. He was 
born at Sheffield in 1856, and was educated at Wesley College in that 
city, and also at the Universities of Edinburgh, Gottingen, Berlin, and 
Paris. In 1879 he was Lecturer on Chemistry at University College, 
Bristol. He was elected President of the Royal Medical Society in 1881, 
and went to Birkenhead in 1891, where he was thrice President of the 
Birkenhead Medical Society. Deeply interested in research work, he was 
the first person to produce the artificial diamond. In order to continue 
original research, he received grants from the Government Research Fund 
and the Royal and Medical Societies of London. He was called upon to 
give evidence before several Royal Commissions and Parliamentary 
Committees. An acknowledged authority on all matters dealing with 
