VOL. III.

Ellustration.

T. SPENCER COBBOLD, M.D., F.R.S. THE various biographical sketches that have hitherto appeared respecting the career of the subject of our present notice have dealt with the matter chiefly from a scientific point of view. Thus in the work on "Eminent Medical Men," edited by the late Dr. Herbert Barker, a tolerably full record is given of Dr. Cobbold's early labours in zoology, botany, and comparative anatomy, whilst other biographies have emphasized his success as a lecturer in connection with the Swiney Chair of Geology. In the Biographie des Contemporains, it is remarked that in 1868, at the recommendation of Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, Dr. Cobbold was called "à la chaire de géologie de Swiney, attachée au Musée Brittanique, òu un auditoire innombrable ne tarda pas à suivre assidûment ses cours." We understand from Dr. Cobbold that he is quite unaware to whom he is indebted for this French statement, which is substantially correct. Taking the entire five courses of geology together, it was found that the total attendances numbered upwards of fifteen thousand persons. Three of the courses, of twelve lectures each, were delivered at the Royal School of Mines, and towards the close of the last course many of the visitors could not be accommodated with seats, so great was the crowd. As regards the lectureship in 'question, we believe this success to have been unprecedented and unique. It has been a matter of regret with Dr. Cobbold that he has latterly felt it his duty to relinquish many of those scientific pursuits in natural history which formed, as it were, his point of departure, and this the more so on account of his acknowledged power as a public lecturer.

It would be easy to quote many proofs of this success, but one example will suffice. Lecturing on the comparatively unpopular subject of "Parasites," on the 12th of

No. 27.

November, 1873, the Critic remarked that the audience who assembled at the Memorial Hall, Manchester, to hear Dr. Cobbold, experienced, "to judge by their rapt attention, a thoroughly intellectual treat." The chairman of the evening, Professor Roscoe, F.R.S., in his introductory speech on the occasion, remarked that the lecturer "had achieved a world-wide reputation" on this subject, the result of intense and long-continued research. As regards his manner and method of delivery, the journal above quoted added: "The subject was treated with much savoir faire. The lecturer's style is highly popular and pleasing. He showed to perfection the power of putting himself on good terms with his audience; he admitted his hearers quite perfectly into his confidence, and kept them interested; so much indeed was this the case, that most of the audience found that his lecture erred on the side of brevity."

Dr. Cobbold commenced the study of medicine at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in 1844, so just forty years have elapsed since his entry into the profession. Under the auspices of that brilliant surgeon and operator, the late John Green Crosse, F.R.S., Mr. Cobbold enjoyed abundant opportunities of learning the details of ordinary bedside work, and during his three years of clinical study he was frequently entrusted with the performance of minor surgical operations. As Mr. Crosse possessed not only a choice pathological collection, but also a private licensed dissecting-room, a sound basis of anatomical and physiological study was supplied to his pupil. In this connection it may be of interest to state that an intensely religious frame of mind possessed Mr. Cobbold at that period. The conversion, as evangelists call it, was as pronounced and accentuated as any enthusiast could desire; moreover, notwithstanding the advanced views on theological matters with which Dr. Cobbold is now correctly credited, he is not ashamed to admit that the rapturous delights of that early intense state, on whatever delusions they may have been based, were as a matter of fact terribly real, and at times

even painfully so. There is nothing illogical in this admission, inasmuch as a too intense enjoyment of any kind, intellectual or otherwise, readily merges into the painful. Those who may be interested in the possibilities of a change of thought and action in life, figuratively speaking as wide as the poles asunder, should see what Mr. Francis Galton, F.R.S., has further recorded of this particular instance in his well-known work on "English Men of Science." Dr. Cobbold's known distaste for dogma or fiction in any shape-in short, of anything possessing a tinge of unreality about it-is there explained as an outcome of the mental discipline involved in the method of science. The Norwich antecedents referred to soon served to fix in Mr. Cobbold's mind a thirst for biological research. His teacher and adviser, Mr. Crosse, notwithstanding London and Dublin predilections, recommended his pupil to proceed to the northern university; for, rightly or wrongly, Mr. Crosse had become strongly imbued with the idea that in the matter of scientific education the Edinburgh school was far ahead of all other colleges and universities. Accordingly, provided with an introduction to Professor Syme, Mr. Cobbold went to Edinburgh, where he was not only received most kindly by the celebrated surgeon, but afterwards frequently welcomed within the family circle at Millbank. In the second year of study Mr. Cobbold became classassistant to Professor Hughes Bennett, in connection with the chair of the Institute of Medicine. Still more advantageous was his appointment to the office of prosector to Professor Goodsir, whose fame as a philosophical anatomist was then at its zenith. In this way it was Mr. Cobbold's fortunate lot to be placed in intimate contact with one of the most profound and far-reaching intellects that ever adorned the Edinburgh University; and having been thus admitted into Goodsir's confidence and friendship, it would have been surprising if any similarly placed young and ardent temperament could have altogether failed to imbibe something of the amazing breadth and scope of the great anatomist's teaching. To prepare dissections for Goodsir's four o'clock lecture was no light task, but whatever errors the prosector committed, they were carefully screened by the professor from the unduly critical eyes of his appreciative class.

Dr. Cobbold graduated in 1851, on the same day as his then intimate fellow students, Dr. Burdon-Sanderson and Dr. Charles Murchison, each of the three receiving a graduation gold medal, which at that time formed the highest honour the university could confer upon its junior alumni. Immediately afterwards Dr. Cobbold proceeded to Paris, and on returning to Edinburgh he was appointed curator of the

He was also at the same period

Anatomical Museum. elected senior president of the Royal Medical Society, in which capacity it subsequently became his duty to deliver the inaugural address at the opening of their new hall at Melbourne Place. This occurred on the 7th of November, 1852. Then a new and definite sphere of activity commenced. Types of all classes of animals were received at the University Museum, and of these many were dissected and mounted for display, whilst others formed materials for private research. for private research. Professor Bennett having started the Physiological Society, Dr. W. T. Gairdner and Dr. Cobbold were elected vice-presidents. To that society Dr. Cobbold contributed an abstract of his prize thesis on the Canal of Petit, besides numerous memoirs on the anatomy of the giraffe and other animals, which together formed the basis of his article "Ruminantia," published in Dr. Todd's "Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology." These labours continued without interruption until a new attraction presented itself in the arrival of Edward Forbes, who was elected to the chair of Natural History vacated by the death of Robert Jamieson. It is not surprising that Dr. Cobbold and many of his equally young and ardent companions were fascinated by the teaching of Forbes alike in the class-room and in the field. The magnetic influence of Forbes over the young naturalists of that day was chiefly due to his geological demonstrations, and in these Cobbold took an especial interest, working hammer in hand and collecting large numbers of fossils and ordinary rock specimens. This collection he afterwards greatly extended by excursions to Arran, to the Yorkshire and Devonshire coasts, to the Isle of Wight, and elsewhere, and thus Cobbold was well supplied with the materials necessary for the illustration of the Swiney Lectures. This happy period was not destined to last long. The scientific world in general and the Edinburgh University in particular received a sudden shock in the announcement of the death of Forbes. After this event Cobbold resigned his appointments in Edinburgh, and immediately repaired to London, where he was at once appointed to the then vacant chair of Botany at St. Mary's Hospital. After two years he became attached to the Middlesex Hospital in a similar capacity, and there for a period of thirteen years he also lectured on Zoology and Comparative Anatomy.

It was during his connection with the Middlesex school that he instituted those experiments in helminthology which brought his name so prominently before the scientific world. The results thus obtained were deemed so important that at the instance of Sir John Lubbock, Bart., the Council of the British Association advanced a small sum of money

1,

At length the necessities of the situation, and those alone, induced Dr. Cobbold to commence practice in Wimpole Street, from whence, after a brief interval, he removed to Harley Street. In this excellent professional locality he practised. for ten years, but during that period he never relinquished his favourite scientific pursuits. He continued to write papers for the societies, and undertook the Swiney Lectures on Geology; at the same time he was engaged in lecturing on Botany, and also on a special course of lectures concerning the "Parasites of Animals employed as Food" at the Society of Arts. Similarly, he delivered numerous public lectures in the large towns of England, such as Birmingham, Manchester, Hull, Norwich, Bath, Nottingham, and Stamford. One course of the Swiney Lectures was delivered at Edinburgh. In 1873 Dr. Cobbold accepted a professorship of botany at the Royal Veterinary College, and shortly afterwards a chair of helminthology was instituted in his favour at the same college. This was established for the purpose of conveying instruction on the parasites and parasitic diseases of the domesticated animals to yeterinary students. It opened up fresh and abundant opportunities of research in connection more especially with comparative pathology. Thus year by year for a decade past Dr. Cobbold has been labouring in this most interesting department of medical science, and as a result he has contributed papers to different journals and societies, the memoirs collectively amounting to several scores. It is needless to enumerate them, but we may add that these efforts did not involve any diminution of his work among the human entozoa. They have indeed tended to increase his knowledge of human helminthology as may be seen in the fact that Dr. Cobbold contributed fifty brief articles on human parasites to Dr. Quain's "Dictionary of Medicine." Although Dr. Cobbold has retired from active practice, he does not refuse to see any patient recommended to consult him by his professional brethren. In this particular connection he has published several useful books, one of which, that on "Tapeworms," has already reached a fourth edition. His lectures on practical helminthology, entitled "Worms," have long been out of print. Besides these he has published a manual of the "Parasites of the Domesticated Animals," as well as a larger "Treatise on Parasites." The last covers the whole ground of helminthology, from mankind downwards through beasts, birds, reptiles, and fishes. He has also recently published a smaller supplementary work on “Human Parasites," which may be regarded as bringing the human section of the large treatise up to date.

for the further prosecution and extension of these labours. At the same time, during three successive years, Dr. Cobbold obtained permission to examine the bodies of animals dying at the Zoological Gardens, the results being communicated to the Zoological Society. It was there that he made the curious discovery of Bilharzia hæmatobia as a parasite infesting a species of African monkey. Many other helminthological investigations were also brought forward as contributions to the "Proceedings and Transactions of the Linnæan Society," his paper on the artificial production of cestode tuberculosis in the calf being read before the Royal Society. Dr. Cobbold was elected a fellow of this learned society on the 2nd of June, 1864, and in the following autumn he published his well-known "Introductory Treatise on the Entozoa," which, as one writer remarked, served to fix his reputation permanently. At that period no English work on animal parasites was in existence, unless we include the Sydenham Society's edition of Küchenmeister. The cordiality with which Dr. Cobbold's volume was received was such that reviews of it appeared in twenty separate periodicals, all of them, without exception, being more or less of a laudatory character. The Lancet observed that the work "formed a noble contribution to medical science and a credit to our national literature." The Edinburgh Medical Journal remarked that it was "the first original work in the English language professing to contain a complete account of the human entozoa." The Medical Times conjectured that "it would leave its mark on this branch of medical knowledge for many years to come; whilst Cosmos said :"Ce livre constitue un des traités les plus approfondis et les plus complets que nous ayons sur cette branche de l'histoire naturelle." The Quarterly Journal of Science, the British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, the Athenæum, the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, and the Popular Science Review, all supported the author in the most kind and complimentary terms. One periodical went so far as to say to Dr. Cobbold, "In thus expounding the life-history of these parasitic creatures, you have contributed to the accomplishment of a task which promises a boon to the human race scarcely second to that conferred by Jenner." Up to the year 1865 Dr. Cobbold steadily refused either to see patients, to prescribe, or to accept fees in any form whatever. After labouring unremittingly for twenty years in Natural History Science, he hoped to obtain some appointment in Biology sufficiently lucrative to enable him, as the phrase goes, to "keep the wolf from the door." That was denied him. It is true that he had a number of attractive posts offered him, two of these, and eventually a third, coming directly through the influence of the late Sir Roderick Impey Murchison.

Lastly, we cannot omit to mention a few of his special essays and contributions which deal with questions that he