VETERINARY OBITUARY. 
411 
Dr. Pearson was an excellent chemist. He was mainly instru¬ 
mental in introducing among us the French nomenclature, which 
gave so wonderful a facility to the understanding of chemical com¬ 
binations and principles. He gave the first analysis of the cele¬ 
brated James’s powder, which, or a compound almost identical 
with it, the Antimonial powder, occupies a place in the veterinary 
pharmacopeia. His experiments, more than those of any other 
man, tended to confirm Mr. Cavendish’s important discovery of 
the decomposition of water; yet, we confess, that his chemical 
lectures were not always satisfactory to us: there was a slovenli¬ 
ness about them—a want of accuracy—a dearth of experiment— 
a repetition of common-place and cheap experiments, yet often 
compensated by profound views of the laws of chemical affinity, 
and the grand phenomena of nature. 
It was when he spoke of the laws of health and disease, the 
medical history of drugs, the mode in which they act, the effects 
which they produce; when, without entering into minute details 
which would soon be forgotten, or, if remembered, would be in¬ 
applicable, he endeavoured to elucidate those principles to which 
all might be referred, and an adherence to which would secure 
us from material error; and when he would frequently illustrate 
those principles by anecdotes characteristic of himself, sometimes, 
indeed, a little free, but always to the purpose, and impressing 
on the mind many an important axiom, the recollection of which 
would otherwise have been evanescent; then it was that we were 
interested, delighted, and improved. And when to this he added 
uniform, and we may almost say parental kindness ; when the 
question of the merest tyro received a courteous and satisfactory 
answer, a warmer feeling than that of respect arose in our minds. 
Dr. Pearson was early appointed a veterinary examiner. His 
attention then occasionally wandered to veterinary subjects, but he 
was not always successful in his investigation of them. In his 
enquiry into the value of cow-pox as a substitute for small-pox, 
influenced by professional jealousy, he did manifest and gross in¬ 
justice to Dr. Jenner. The friends of Pearson deeply lamented 
his conduct in this particular. His letter to Arthur Young on 
the rot in sheep, added another striking instance to the too many 
on record of the folly which attaches to the cleverest men, when 
they write on that of which they have no personal experience. 
Some of us, perhaps, a little doubt the accuracy of his experi¬ 
ments on th a fatty frog, as our Professor used to call it, and the 
result of which w 7 as, in the language of the chairman of the din¬ 
ner of 1828, that “ the devil a bit of fat had he found in it.” 
Dr. Pearson was constant in his attendance as an examiner, 
and sometimes a little hard upon the candidate, especially if he 
