OBITUARY NOTICES. 
407 
His chief life work, and that which he best loved, was in 
connection with the Chair of Physiology in Columbian Uni¬ 
versity. Above all else he aimed to teach his subject, and in 
this he succeeded. He was a favorite with both students 
and professors. With his confreres in the medical profes¬ 
sion he stood deservedly high, having been honored with 
the presidency of both the Medical Society and the Medical 
Association of the District of Columbia. 
In his work he was careful, painstaking, and methodical, 
as he was in all the relations of life. He was unobtrusive 
and modest in claiming credit for what he did. 
For several years preceding his death he suffered from 
diabetes, which rendered the performance of his manifold 
duties more difficult, but he persevered in his work up to 
his last illness, which was pneumonia following grip. He 
died in Washington, March 2, 1893. 
On April 2, 1885, he was married to Mary Agusta Gadsby 
(daughter of William Gadsby and Mary Agusta Bruff), but 
left no children. 
D. W. Prentiss. 
WALTER LAMB NICHOLSON. 
1825-1895. 
[Read before the Society, May 23, 1896.] 
Walter Lamb Nicholson was born in Edinburg, Scotland, 
in 1825, and was educated at the high school, where he dis¬ 
played unusual proficiency in languages and mathematics. 
At the age of sixteen, upon the death of his father, William 
Nicholson, one of the founders and for four years honorary 
secretary of the Royal Scottish Academy, he went to England 
to study civil engineering, and was employed in the office of 
the London and Great Midland railroad until 1851, when he 
came to America to take a position as assistant engineer on 
railroads in Kentucky and Arkansas. This duty occupied 
* 
58—Bull. Phil. Soc., Wash., Vol. 13. 
