Obituary Notices. 
123ff 
the introduction of formalin as the hardening reagent, and His 
was not slow to take advantage of this advance. One of his last 
papers, entitled Studien an gehdrteten Leichen uber Form und 
Lagerung des menschlichen Magens, deals with observations con- 
ducted in this manner, and was published as recently as last year. 
The paper which Professor His wrote upon the skeleton of 
Johann Sebastian Bach, the distinguished musician, is of such 
general interest that I may be permitted to allude specially to it. 
Bach, who died in 1750, at the age of 65, was buried in the 
churchyard of the Johanniskirehe, but tradition alone pointed to 
the site of the burial. In 1894, when the new church was in 
course of erection, it was very naturally considered desirable 
that the remains should be found, in order that they might be 
suitably reinterred. A search in the place indicated revealed an 
oaken coffin containing the skeleton of an aged man. By 
comparing the skull, which presented some peculiarities — more 
especially a marked projection of the lower jaw — with portraits of 
Bach, His was able to identify the skeleton as that of the famous, 
musician, and he wrote an elaborate memoir on the remains. 
With much labour he was able to reconstruct from the skull the 
outline of the head, and he also devoted especial attention to the 
temporal bones, within which are encased the essential parts of 
the organ of hearing. There is an impression among certain 
anatomists who have given attention to the matter that the 
tympanic membrane of the ear in musicians is set in its bony 
frame more vertically than in ordinary mortals. His did not find 
this to be the case with Bach : the angle which the membrane 
formed Avith the floor of the auditory passage was 42°, whilst the 
average angle is said to be about 55°. 
When His became head of the Anatomical Institute in Leipzig,. 
Wilhelm Braune was appointed Professor of Topographical 
Anatomy in the same University. The association of these two 
Avorkers in different departments of the one subject was an ex- 
tremely happy one. They soon became united by the ties of a 
Avarm friendship, and it is not surprising that, Avith a combination 
so strong, it Avas from the Leipzig school that the chief movement 
took place AAdiich led to so great a change in anatomical thought 
and method. 
