Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Jan.,  1884. 
Obituary. 
57 
Index  to  the  Transactions  of  the  American  Medical  Association,  Vols.  I- 
XXXIII.  Prepared  by  Wm.  B.  Atkinson,  M.D.,  Permanent  Secretary. 
Philadelphia,  1883.    8vo,  pp.  130. 
A  useful  and  well-prepared  general  index  of  these  Transactions,  which 
renders  the  subject-matter  contained  therein  available.  Since  last  year  the 
Association  has  discontinued  the  publication  of  an  annual  volume,  and 
replaced  it  by  a  weekly  Journal  published  under  the  auspices  of  the  Asso- 
ciation, such  a  general  index  became  very  desirable. 
OBITUARY. 
John  Eliot  Howard,  F.R.S.,  the  celebrated  quinologist,  died  quite 
unexpectedly  on  the  22d  of  November  last,  at  his  residence,  Lord's  Meade, 
Tottenham,  having  attained  the  ripe  age  of  76  years.  He  was  born  Decem- 
ber 11,  1807,  and,  after  leaving  school,  entered  the  business  established  by 
his  father,  Luke  Howard,  at  Stratford,  and  carried  on  under  the  well- 
known  firm  of  Howards  &  Sons.  It  is  not  unlikely  that  the  publication 
of  Weddell's  important  work  on  the  cinchonas,  published  in  1849,  may 
have  more  forcibly  directed  Mr.  Howard's  attention  to  this  important  sub- 
ject ;  at  any  r.tte,  in  1852,  he  published  his  first  paper  on  cinchona,  an 
elaborate  examination  of  Pavon's  specimens  of  bark  preserved  in  the 
British  Museum,  and  from  this  time  until  his  death  he  was  foremost  in  the 
endeavors  made  to  secure  to  suffering  humanity  a  bountiful  supply  of  this 
indispensable  remedy.  He  traced  the  valuable  manuscript  of  Pavon,  enti- 
tled "Nueva  Quinologia,"  which  had  remained  unnoticed  for  about  35 
years  in  Spain,  and  published  it  in  1862,  embellished  with  30  beautiful 
colored  plates,  drawn  by  the  well-known  artist  Mr.  Fitch,  from  Pavon's 
original  specimens  preserved  at  Madrid.  In  the  meantime,  the  Dutch 
government  had  sent  Hasskarl,  and  the  British  government  Clements 
Markham,  with  several  aids,  on  their  mission  to  the  cinchona  region, 
which  resulted  in  the  transplantation  of  the  valuable  trees  to  Java  and 
India  and  afterwards  to  other  countries.  For  nearly  30  years,  and  up  to 
the  time  of  his  death,  Mr.  Howard  gave  all  the  aid  in  his  power  to  this 
important  enterprise,  and  his  services  were,  in  1873,  acknowledged  in  a 
special  vote  of  thanks  from  the  British  government.  Of  the  numerous 
papers  written  by  him  on  the  subject,  to  which  he  devoted  so  much  time 
and  labor,  quite  a  number  have  been  transferred  to  the  pages  of  this  Jour- 
nal. His  illustrated  Quinology  of  the  East  India  Plantations,  published 
in  three  parts,  contains  the  results  of  important  researches  in  this  field  ;  it 
forms  a  most  valuable  part  of  the  extensive  literature  on  the  cinchonas. 
For  thirty  years,  Mr.  Howard  was  a  member  of  the  Pharmaceutical 
Society  of  Great  Britain  ;  on  the  6th  of  October  last  he  received  the  Han- 
bury  gold  medal  as  a  recognition  of  the  value  of  his  scientific  investigations 
respecting  an  important  article  of  materia  medica.  He  was  also  a  member 
of  the  Linnean  Society,  the  Royal  Society,  the  British  Pharmaceutical 
Conference,  and  an  honorary  member  of  numerous  scientific  bodies, 
among  them  of  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy. 
Mr.  Howard  died  after  a  very  brief  illness,  leaving  a  large  circle  of  chil- 
dren and  grandchildren. 
♦ 
