Scientific worthies : [No.] 29, Sir Joseph Lister / [Hermann Tillmanns].

  • Hermann Tillmanns
Date:
[1896]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Scientific worthies : [No.] 29, Sir Joseph Lister / [Hermann Tillmanns]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    antiseptic surgery, would have 'been obviously unjusti¬ fiable. We have hitherto dwelt chiefly upon his scientific work, but such facts as those just mentioned serve to show how largely he has devoted himself to, and how much he has advanced, the practical side of his profession. It seems almost unnecessary to refer to a list of his honours, which is a very long one, including that of LL.D. Edinburgh, 1878, Hon. M.D. Dublin, 1879, LL.D. Glasgow, 1879, D.C.L. Oxon, and LL.D. Cambridge, 1880. He is Surgeon-Extraordinary to the Queen, and Knight of the Prussian order, “ Pour le Merite,” Knight Commander of the First Class Order of the Danebrog, and honorary member of foreign learned societies without number. He was created a baronet in 1883, and last year succeeded Lord Kelvin as President of the Royal Society. It would be more to the point if one could suitably describe the estimation in which he is held by the civilised world, and the enthusiasm he has always inspired amongst those who have come under his immediate personal influence. AN EXPEDITION TO RUWENZORI. A Naturalist in Mid-Africa; being an Account of a Journey to the Mountains of the Moon and Tanganyika. By G. F. E. Scott Elliot, M.A., F.L.S., F.R.G.S. 8vo. Pp. xvi +413, with 50 illustrations and 4 maps. (London : A. D. Innes and Co., 1896.) N 1862 Baron von der Decken discovered on Kilima Njaro a number of plants which are quite different from those of the surrounding country, and are allied to those of the mountains of Abyssinia and the Cameroons, and of the lowlands of the Mediterranean and the Cape. The collections made by the late Joseph Thomson on the lower slopes of the same mountain and on the plateau of Masai-land proved the complex nature of the East African flora, and enabled Sir Joseph Hooker, in a paper which is one of the classics of African literature, to suggest the sources whence its constituents were derived. The interest thus aroused in the geographical affinities of this flora subsequently sent Sir H. H. Johnston and a host of German botanists to undertake detailed work in Kilima Njaro. Still more recently it inspired Mr. Scott Elliot to undertake his adventurous journey to Ruwenzori ; for he tells us in his opening page, that the object of his expedition was “ to solve the question of botanical areas which on this side of Africa had often puzzled me.” Mr. Scott Elliot left Mombasa in November 1893, and began his march into the interior along thejtrack known as the “ Uganda road.” His men had been chosen for him by the agents of the British East Africa Company, and the selection does not appear to have been a good one. Mr. Scott Elliott had to dismiss his head man, the terms of whose engagement were at least remarkable ; and his opinion of Zanzibari (or “ Suahili,” as he generally calls them) appears to have been permanently affected by the unsatisfactory character of his men. The narra¬ tive takes us rapidly across the country of the Wakamba to that of the Masai, in which the author had the mis¬ fortune to lose all his donkeys and their loads. He pressed on to Kavirondo, and thence along the northern NO. 1384, VOL. 54] 0 shores of the Victoria Nyanza to Uganda. The direct route on to Ruwenzori was unsafe, as Kabbarega the king of Unyoro, was then at war with the British authorities. Anxious to avoid interference from this chief, whom he describes as one of the “ ruffians of the sort who always obtain the sympathy of Mr. Labouchere,” Mr. Scott Elliot kept southward along the western shore of the Nyanza. Having reached the Kagera River, he followed up this, and crossed Ankole to the southern end of Ruwenzori. This was the main goal of the expedition, and Mr. Scott Elliot spent four months exploring and collecting on the flanks of this snow-capped range. He made several attempts to reach the snow-line, but the nature of the work and illness prevented him. His account of mountaineering in Central Africa is not inviting. “It was an awful ascent. Sometimes over deep moss, where jagged root-ends of heather seemed to spring out and stab ankles and knees at every step ; sometimes through a dense wood of gnarled and twisted heather- trees, fifteen to twenty feet high, and covered with grey lichens, then down a steep little ravine and dense jungle ; and things soon became very hopeless. Everything was shrouded in a cold chilling mist, and first one man and then another became knocked up, until at about 10 a.m. I was left alone. I went on by myself till 2 p.m. The effect of mountain sickness was most trying ; I could not walk more than fifty yards without stopping to get breath, and by 2 p.m. I was utterly exhausted, and with¬ out food or anything to sleep in. This was at about 12,500 feet.” The level at which the author suffered from mountain sickness was unusually low ; but it can be easily explained as due to the effects of malarial fever, which renders men liable to attacks of this malady, at elevations at which they would otherwise be safe. Two of the men who took part in this excursion never recovered from it, and next time Mr. Scott Elliot tried the ascent, he went alone. He succeeded in reaching the height of 13,000 feet, after a weary struggle with rain, and cold and fever. Climbing over some half- buried boulders,, he fell and nearly broke his leg ; after this, numbed with cold, and shivering with fever, he crawled back to the point where he had left his blanket- bag, when fireless and foodless in the drenching rain, the night passed as “ a sort of horrible dream.” Though Mr. Scott Elliot did not reach the summit of Ruwenzori, he reached the Alpine meadows below the snow-line, and this for his purpose was far more important. From Ruwenzori he returned to the Kagera River at the point where he had left it, and followed it southward through Karagwe, of Speke’s description of which Mr. Scott Elliot speaks most highly. He crossed Urundi to the northern end of Tanganyika ; he journeyed down the lake by dhow, marched along the Stevenson road to Lake Nyasa, and then returned home by the Zambesi. Mr. Scott Elliot’s book consists of twenty chapters, which may be divided into two groups. The larger of these is devoted to the narrative of the expedition. This gives a most interesting record of a brilliant piece of pioneer exploration, which was carefully planned, was pluckily carried out in spite of exceptional discourage¬ ments, and is described with much charm of style and