AmMS;f9ofrm'}        Professor  John  Attfield,  F.R.S.  105 
Royal  Society  in  1862.  This  year  would  appear  to  have  been  at 
once  the  busiest  and  the  most  eventful  of  his  life.  In  January  of 
that  year  he  was  elected  a  Fellow  of  the  Chemical  Society,  and 
later  he  made  his  first  appearance  as  an  analyst  in  a  court  of  law  in 
a  case  of  poisoning  by  strychnine.  In  the  summer  of  1862  he  was 
elected  to  the  Chair  of  Practical  Chemistry  in  the  School  of  Phar- 
macy of  the  Pharmaceutical  Society  of  Great  Britain.  Among  the 
competitors  for  this  post  was  Mr.  (afterwards  Sir)  William  Crookes, 
F.R.S.  He  then  betook  himself  for  a  few  months  to  Germany  in 
order  to  obtain  a  degree.  From  the  University  of  Tubingen  he 
obtained  the  degrees  of  Master  of  Arts  and  Doctor  of  Philosophy- 
His  paper  on  the  carbon  spectrum  drew  highly  complimentary 
remarks  from  the  examiners. 
Professor  Attfield  had  now  entered  upon  what  was  to  prove  one 
of  the  chief  occupations  of  his  life.  Possessed  as  he  was  of  a  reten- 
tive memory  and  a  broad  grasp  of  his  subject,  he  filled  with  distinc- 
tion the  position  to  which  he  was  elected.  He  set  himself  to 
develop  and  cultivate  the  intellectual  powers  of  his  pupils,  rather 
than  to  cram  them  with  facts.  The  records  show  that  during  the 
thirty-four  years  of  his  professorship  no  fewer  than  2,367  students 
passed  through  his  hands.  Many  of  these  subsequently  distinguished 
themselves  in  their  calling.  Indeed,  very  large  numbers  of  the 
British  researches  in  pharmaceutical  chemistry  during  his  tenure  of 
the  professorship  were  conducted  by  his  old  students.  The  reten- 
tiveness  of  Professor  Attfield's  memory,  to  which  we  have  referred, 
is  well  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  he  remembered  the  face,  and  in 
nearly  every  case,  the  name  of  each  of  his  old  students.  The  neces 
sity  of  publishing  a  trustworthy  text-book  of  practical  chemistry  was 
soon  felt,  and  to  this  task  he  now  devoted  his  attention.  Taking  as 
a  basis  some  manuscript  notes  which  he  had  prepared  for  the  stu- 
dents at  St.  Bartholomew's  he  endeavored  to  combine  the  outlines 
of  the  principles  of  chemistry  with  the  details  of  practical  work.  The 
result  of  his  labors  was  the  production  in  1867  of  the  first  edition  of 
his  "  Manual  of  Chemistry."  Its  popularity  is  great  on  both  sides 
of  the  Atlantic,  the  eighteenth  English  edition,  edited  by  Dr.  Leon- 
ard Dobbin,  appearing  in  1903.  When  a  demand  arose  for  the 
book  in  America,  in  May,  1870,  the  late  Mr.  William  Procter,  Jr., 
Mr.  Ebert,  of  Chicago,  and  Mr.  Markoe,  of  Boston,  called  on  Mr. 
H.  C.  Lea  and  arranged  with  him  the  details  as  to  the  publication 
