Am.  .lour.  Pliarm.'t 
October,  18H9.  / 
Obituary. 
509 
maceutical  education.  While  director  of  the  chemical  laboratory  and  professor 
of  organic  chemistry  for  all  departments  of  the  University,  he  has  served  as  the 
dean  of  the  department  of  pharmacy.  Since  1880  his  work  as  a  teacher  has 
been  devoted  almost  exclusively  to  his  chosen  subject,  organic  chemistry. 
His  students  represent  nearly  every  department  of  the  University.  He  speaks 
slowly  and  concisely,  voicing  the  knowledge  he  has  to  impart  in  unmistakable 
terms. 
His  success  as  a  teacher  may  be  best  stated  by  quoting  the  words  of  one  of 
his  pupils,  who  said  that  he  had  listened  to  "many  teachers,  both  in  this  coun- 
try and  in  Europe,  but  had  found  none  who  excel  him  in  clearness  of  expres- 
sion, so  that  ideas  can  be  readily  grasped  by  the  student."  Dr.  Prescott  is  a 
very  busy  man,  accomplishing  a  great  amount  of  work  without  apparent  haste, 
and  yet  he  is  never  too  busy  to  patiently  and  carefully  explain  the  minutest 
point  to  a  student  seeking  after  knowledge. 
In  research  his  subjects  have  mostly  been  taken  from  organic  and  analyti- 
cal chemistry.  In  the  pharmacopceial  revision  of  1880,  Dr.  Prescott  was  chair- 
man of  the  sub-committee  on  descriptive  chemistry,  and  prepared  the  directions 
for  volumetric  estimation  upon  their  introduction  into  this  work.  This  year 
he  has  written  the  chapter  upon  alkaloids  for  the  forthcoming  American 
Text-book  of  Toxicology.  Professor  Prescott  is  a  member  of  many  scientific 
societies.  He  is  President  of  the  American  Association  for  the  Advancement 
of  Science  and  a  councillor  in  the  American  Chemical  Society.  As  to  the 
American  Pharmaceutical  Association,  Dr.  Prescott  expresses  his  conviction 
that  it  has  a  future  of  great  good  before  it.  It  is  a  body  of  able  and  devoted 
workers,  bent  upon  the  support  of  scientific  investigation,  the  maintenance  of 
sound  commercial  principles  and  the  union  of  all  the  interests  of  pharmacists 
in  this  country. 
OBITUARY. 
Sir  Edward  Frankxand,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  of  English 
chemists,  died  on  August  9th,  in  Norway,  where  he  had  gone  for  recreation. 
He  was  in  the  seventy-fourth  year  of  his  age,  having  been  born  at  Church- 
town,  near  Lancaster,  in  1825.  His  preliminary  education  was  obtained  at  the 
Lancaster  Grammar  School,  and  his  studies  in  chemistry  were  pursued  at  the 
Museum  of  Practical  Geology,  in  London,  under  Play  fair,  and  in  the  labora- 
tories of  Liebig  and  Bunsen,  at  Giessen  and  Marburg. 
To  Frankland  has  been  ascribed  the  hypothesis  of  the  atomicity  of  the  ele- 
ments, his  views  regarding  this  subject  having  been  communicated  to  the  Royal 
Society  in  1852.  These  were  based  on  deductions  from  his  studies  of  the 
organo-metallic  compounds,  bodies  formed  by  the  union  of  a  positive  organic 
radicle  with  a  metal.  His  discovery  of  these  compounds  was  made  in  1850, 
when  he  announced  the  preparation  of  compounds  of  zinc  with  ethyl  and 
methyl,  and  predicted  the  existence  of  other  similar  bodies.  In  185 1  he  was 
appointed  professor  of  chemistry  at  Owens  College,  Manchester,  and  it  was  at 
this  time  that  he  began  his  work  in  applied  chemistry,  his  most  import- 
ant contributions  to  this  subject  being  those  on  the  questions  of  water  supply 
and  sewage.  In  company  with  Tyndall,  he  spent  a  night  on  the  very  summit 
of  Mont  Blanc,  in  August,  1859,  for  the  purpose  of  determining  whether  the  rate 
