: r&rr ? ? ?*?. * > ? -' W$gw*&w ? j "v; , v., , M 11? 5? -_JI , ^\'w . ?? IHHEfzSI BEeKIIMHSMSI : H ; V* From a Photo From a Photo by]by] [Maull[Maull 6s<?? Fox,Fox, London.London. Obituary. 113 ? b r t u it r t'. SIR WILLIAM TENNANT GAIRDNER, K.C.B., M.D., LL.D., F.R.S. So lately as last November, we published an obituary notice of the late Dr. James Finlayson, with a note of appreciation by his old chief, Sir W. T. Gairdner; and now another of the mighty has fallen?Gairdner himself. The latter had com- pleted his lifework, and was quietly waiting for the call to rest, while the former was smitten down, as most would have thought, years before his proper time. William Tennant Gairdner was born in Edinburgh on 8th November, 1824. His father wTas Dr. John Gairdner, a well-known practitioner in Edinburgh, who was at one time President of the Royal College of Surgeons of that city. His mother was a cousin of his father, and bore the maiden name of Susanna Tennant. Young Gairdner received his education * in Edinburgh, and among the teachers who specially impressed him in the course of his medical curriculum, Alison and Christison ought to be particularly mentioned. He graduated in medicine in August, 1845, before he had quite reached the age of 21, and almost immediately afterwards he left for Rome as travelling physician to the Earl and Countess of Beverley. to a On returningO EdinburghO he became resident assistant in the Royal Infirmary, and in the course of the two years (1846-1848) during which he occupied this office, he had such an experience of typhus fever as would easily account, even though no other explanation were available, for the intense interest he subsequently took in public health. In 1848 he was appointed pathologist to the Infirmary, and two years later he enunciated his well-known theory of inspiratory emphysema. In 1850, also, he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. In 1853 he was ap- pointed a physician to the wards of the Infirmary, and in the same year he began to lecture, extra-murally, on the practice of medicine. In 1862 Gairdner was appointed Professor of Medicine in the University of Glasgow, in succession to John M'Farlane. Ten years previously, at the age of about 28, he had been an unsuccessful candidate for the same office, when M'Farlane No. 2. H Vol. LXVIII. 114 Obituary. secured the appointment in succession to William Thomson. A copy of the application which Gairdner submitted to the Home Secretary in 1852, together with testimonials and a list of published writings, is preserved in the Library of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. It is a remarkable document, which is well worthy of perusal on account of the boldness and ability with which the candidate states his claims. Gairdner became professor in Glasgow at the age of 38, and during the next period of thirty-eight years his life and work were centred in the West of Scotland, though his teaching spread widely throughout the civilised world. The writer of the excellent obituary notice in the British Medical Journal recalls the names of some of his colleagues in the Senate in the early days?Lister, Allen Thomson, Andrew Buchanan, Easton, Harry Rainy, Thomson (now Lord Kelvin), Lushington, William Ramsay, and John Caird. For a good many years, of course, the systematic lectures were given in the Old College in the High Street, the hour at that period being 10 o'clock, but the visiting staff were supposed to begin work at the Royal Infirmary half an hour sooner than under the present arrangement. In the summer of the year before he came to Glasgow, Gairdner had given a course of lectures on the subject of public health, and it was therefor^ quite fitting that in 1863 the Corporation of Glasgow should appoint him to be their first Medical Officer of Health. On 1st June of the same year he was elected a Fellow of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons. His supervision of the public health continued until 1872, and was no light task, when added to his pro- fessorial duties and his private consulting practice. He was succeeded in this capacity, as is well known, by the late Dr. J. B. Russell, previously the resident medical officer of the fever hospital which, at Gairdner's instigation, the city opened in 1865. Gairdner was married in 1870 to Miss Helen Wright of Norwich, who survives him. Their family was a large one. Two sons are in the medical profession and another is a missionary, while one of the daughters is the wife of Professor L. R. Sutherland, of St. Andrews University. Gairdner was the first president of the Glasgow Pathological and Clinical Society, which was founded in 1873 and con- tinued its work until its amalgamation, in the present year, with an older and larger Society?the Medico-Chirurgical. In 1876 he applied, though only after long hesitation, for Obituary. 115 the Edinburgh Chair of Medicine, which had become vacant through the death of Laycock. No doubt he subsequently felt the natural regret of an unsuccessful candidate, but it is probable that if his trusted advisers had recommended him to remain where he was, and not to trouble about Edinburgh, no one would have been better satisfied than himself. He was made LL.D. of Edinburgh University in 1883, and Hon. M.D. of Dublin and Hon. F.R.C.P.I. in 1887. He was President the at in of British Medical Association the Glasgowo meetingo 1888. An interesting event happened in January, 1893, when his portrait, painted by Sir George Reid, was presented to the University by Dr. Joseph Coats, in the name of five or six hundred former pupils. The replica was presented to Gairdner by Dr. Yellowlees, one of his oldest pupils and house physicians. In this year, too, Gairdner was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He represented the University of Glasgow on the General Medical Council from November, 1893, till November, 1903. In 1898 Her Majesty, the late Queen Victoria, conferred upon him the honour of K.C.B.; it is well known that he could have had a knighthood long before if he had wished it. He was an honorary physician-in-ordinary to her late Majesty, and His Majesty King Edward conferred upon him a similar appointment. Gairdner resigned his professorship in 1900, and at the same time retired from the office of visiting physician to the Western Infirmary. One of the principal reasons for his resignation, as he explained to his students at the time, was serious impairment of eyesight, which restricted his capacity for reading. He had always been myopic; for some years he blind of one eve of J had been ?/ througho detachment the retina; and now cataract was threatening the other eye. Yet he retained his intellectual acuteness and his kindly interest in men and books, even in still later years, when bodily weakness impaired to some extent his power of moving about. On 19th June, 1900, he was entertained to dinner in the Windsor Hotel by a large number of his Glasgow colleagues and friends. He was appointed an Honorary Consulting Physician to the Western Infirmary on the occasion of his withdrawal from the visiting staff. In the same year he was awarded the Moxon medal for distinction in research in clinical medicine. Even after his retiral, Gairdner's pen was not idle, although latterly he dictated what he wrote to a member of his family. To the Glasgoiv Medical Journal for April, 1902, he con- tributed a very interesting letter on the subject of the use of 116 Obituary. digitalis and opium in pneumonia. His last published work, The Three Things that Abide, appeared in 1903. But still later, he wrote to the weekly medical press, describing a device for getting the best use possible out of a single and already damaged eye. Some years ago, Gairdner became the subject of the Stokes- Adams syndrone, including momentary attacks of impaired consciousness, with slowing of the pulse. In the earlier days the pulse would regain its frequency after an hour or so, but after a time it became permanently slow, and when this hap- pened, the liability to take nervous attacks ceased altogether. The distinguished patient reckoned his normal pulse-rate as 70 per minute, but in recent years the limits were, roughly speaking, 15 and 35 ; the present writer has counted it, on an average afternoon, 26 per minute. When Gairdner retired, he decided to settle in Edinburgh, and he accordingly took a house at 32 George Square. Within the past few months, however, he removed to a suburban residence at Colinton, and there he died suddenly on Friday, 28th June. One of his old Glasgow friends had visited him that day, and found him looking as well as he had done for a considerable time. After this friend took his departure, Gairdner was left alone for a short time, and when the room was again entered he was found to be dead. The interment took place on Tuesday, 2nd July, a memorial service being held in the Bute Hall, and the remains being thereafter deposited in the family burying-ground at the Western Necropolis of this city. It is difficult, very difficult, to do justice to Gairdner's qualities of head and heart, and we shall simply mention briefly some of the more outstanding features of his character.