Alewander Winchell. SY 
invitation of Prof. James Hall, he visited Albany, carrying along 
with him a ‘‘trunkful” of fossils for mutual study and compari- 
son in Prof. Hall’s laboratory. Simultaneously with the com- 
mencement of preparations for this trip, according to his diary, 
rheumatic pains were perceived in various parts of the body. 
These were attributed to having takena bad cold through exposure 
in the Museum, where he had to work without fire. Once only 
(February 14) while at Albany, he notes ‘‘continual fluttering and 
palpitation about the heart. Earsring. Stomach impaired. No 
difficulty in drawing a long breath.” Repairing to his father’s 
home (Lakeville, Conn.) on February 16, he became much worse 
and passed through a severe siege of intlammatory rheumatism, 
under the faithful nursing of his mother, leaving there again for 
Albany on March 15, and reaching Ann Arbor, March 22. A\l- 
though his rheumatic pains ceased gradually, the cardiac mani- 
festations were kept up, and increased alarmingly. His diary for 
the next two or three years is burdened with references to the 
“thumping” and the ‘‘spasms” which he constantly experienced 
about the heart. He consulted Dr. Abram Sager soon after 
returning from Lakeville, and from his treatment he experienced 
some temporary relief. He carefully analyzed his own case, and 
the following may be taken as samples of many passages in his 
diary written when, at Lexington, Ky., he was inaugurating, un- 
der Regent Bowman, the courses in natural science, at Kentucky 
University. For years, and apparently until he was wholly in- 
capacitated by the encroachment of the disease, he lived with the 
impending probability of sudden death constantly before him. 
After considering the question whether the peculiar sensations he 
felt might not be centered in the stomach instead of the heart, he 
writes: 
Be that as it may the circumstances have been such that I have been 
led to think much about the probable shortening of my life. No one 
can think of death without some shrinking back. To go out of the 
world into the untried uncertainties which lie the other side of death is 
a serious business—to drop half-finished plans—to leave life’s work but 
half completed—above all to leave a little destitute family—to break 
their hearts with bereavement —to leave my little daughters to the trials, 
griefs and exposures of an orphan life—poor, education and accom 
plishments not yet secured—Oh, this is trying. But it is after all for 
them rather than myself, that regret arises. As for me—the individual 
I must die sometime, and the uncertainties of the future will be as reat 
twenty years hence as now, and so far as regards nature’s reluctance to 
