s 
Obituary.  157 
a  Con-esponding  Member,  and  only  a  few  months  since,  the  Pharmaceutical 
Society  of  Great  Britain  had  elected  him  an  Honorary  Member. 
Dr.  Theodor  Rieckher  died  in  Marbach,  Germany,  January  17th,  at  the  age  of 
seventy  years.  He  was  born  and  educated  in  Stuttgart,  and  after  finishing  his 
apprenticeship  studied  natural  sciences  and  devoted  himself  particularly  to 
chemistry.  Subsequently  he  became  proprietor  of  the  pharmacy  in  Marbach, 
and  continued  in  active  business  until  a  few  years  ago.  His  practical  obser- 
vations and  researches,  which  were  mostly  published  in  the  Neues  Jahrbuchfil  r 
Pharmacie,  are  of  lasting  value  and  attracted  much  attention ;  a  number  of 
them  have  been  translated  for  this  Journal.  Fumaric,  valeric  and  angelic 
acids,  rectification  of  sulphuric  acid,  phosphoric  acid,  estimation  of  nitric  acid, 
ferric  oxide,  mercurous  iodide,  salts  of  bismuth  and  silver,  purification  of 
potassa,  Schlippe's  salt,  distinction  of  antimony  and  arsenic,  anhydrous  alco- 
hol, amyl  alcohol,  tests  for  chloral  and  strychnia,  are  some  of  the  subjects 
which  claimed  his  attention,  besides  many  of  the  galenical  preparations.  For 
a  prolonged  period  he  was  presiding  director  of  the  South-German  Apothe- 
caries Society.  He  took  an  active  part  in  the  organization  of  the  First  Interna- 
tional Pharmaceutical  Congress,  held  in  Braunschweig,  Germany,  1865,  and  at 
the  second  Congress  held  in  Paris,  France,  in  1867,  was  on  the  first  ballot  elected 
President,  the  late  Prof.  William  Procter  being  First  Vice  President. 
Dr.  Eieckher  was  a  pharmacist  of  broad  views,  and  a  devoted  disciple  of 
science  in  its  application  to  pharmacy.  In  him  the  Philadelphia  College  of 
Pharmacy  has  lost  one  of  its  corresponding  members. 
Professor  Heinrich  Anton  De  Bary,  the  celebrated  botanist,  died  in  Strassburg, 
January  19th,  at  the  age  of  fifty-seven  years.  He  was  born  in  Frankfort-on- 
the-Main,  January  26th,  1831,  and  received  his  preliminary  education  in  his 
native  city,  studying  afterwards  at  the  Universities  of  Heidelberg,  Marburg  and 
Berlin,  where  he  graduated  in  medicine  in  1853.  At  first  he  intended  to  prac- 
tice medicine  in  Frankfort,  where  his  father  was  a  physician,  but  in  1854  he 
located  at  Tubingen  as  Lecturer  on  Botany,  and  in  1855  accepted  a  call  to  the 
University  of  Freiburg  where  in  1859  he  became  Professsor  ordinary  of  Botany, 
In  1867  he  occupied  the  same  chair  in  Halle,  and  in  1872  went  to  the  newly 
created  University  at  Strassburg,  becoming  its  first  rector.  Already  in  1853  he 
published  researches  on  the  smuts  (ustilagine^)  and  the  diseases  caused  by  them 
in  plants,  particularly  in  grain  and  other  useful  plants.  This  work  indicated  the 
domain  of  science  to  which  his  life  was  mostly  devoted,  namely,  the  crypto- 
grams, and  among  them,  more  particularly  the  fungi.  The  lowest  forms  of 
vegetable  life  were  necessarily  drawn  within  the  scope  of  his  observations  ; 
in  1885  appeared  his  important  work  on  the  Comparative  Morphology  and 
Biology  of  Fungi,  Mycetozoa  and  Bacteria."  One  of  his  best  known  works  is 
on  the  "  Comparative  Anatomy  of  the  Vegetative  Organs  of  the  Phanerogams 
and  Ferns,"  published  in  1877  as  the  third  volume  of  "  Hofmeister's  Physio- 
logical Botany "  projected  in  1861.  Since  1866  De  Bary  was  editor  of  the 
Botanische  Zeitung  which  periodical  contains  numerous  contributions  from 
him  and  from  his  pupils.  The  deceased  was  asscociated  with  many  scientific 
societies  in  honorary  membership,  for  a  few  months  also  with  the  Pharma- 
ceutical Society  of  Great  Britain. 
Professor  Asa  Gray,  who  died  at  Cambridge,  Mass.,  January  30th,  was  born  in 
Paris,  Oneida  County,  New  York,  November  18th,  1810 ;  educated  at  the  Clin- 
Am.  Jour  Pharm.  \ 
March,  1888.  J 
