The late Sir John Burdon-Sanderson.
- Brunton, Thomas Lauder, Sir, 1844-1916.
- Date:
- 1905
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The late Sir John Burdon-Sanderson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![Reprinted from Nature, December 14, 1905.] The late Sir John Burdon-Sanderson. The account of the life of Sir John Burdon-Sanderson in Nature of December 7 is so admirable that any addition to it may seem superfluous. Yet, as one who knew Burdon- Sanderson for more than thirty-seven years, and who owed more to him than language can well express, I shall be grateful if you will allow me to say a few words more about him. It seems to me that in one respect men may be likened to mountains. The Matterhorn rises sharply to a single peak, and there can be no doubt as to its summit. Monte Rosa has more than one summit, so nearly on a level that a stranger would be unable to say which is highest, and although each is higher than the Matterhorn, the enormous bulk of the mountain takes away from their apparent height and makes them less imposing. In the same way it is easy to say what the great work has been of any man who has distinguished himself in a limited subject, but when a man’s work ranges over a wide sphere it is not so easy. The account of Sir John Burdon-Sanderson’s life in last week’s Nature clearly shows the wide extent of his activity and the great number of epoch-making discoveries which he made. If a scientific man were asked which of these is the greatest, he would probably answer according to his own personal bias. One man would name his unique researches on motion in plants ; another his discovery of the possibility of attenu- ating anthrax virus and thus producing immunity from the disease; a third his researches on circulation and respiration ; and a fourth his work on muscle and nerve. But all these things, important as they are, each one being sufficient to make a man famous in a special department, were only isolated outgrowths of his great work, and did not constitute it. I believe that I am right in saying that Burdon-Sanderson’s life-work may be defined in three short sentences :—(1) He revolutionised physiology and pathology in this country; (2) he found them consisting of book- learning and microscopic observation; (3) he left them experimental sciences. When he first constructed a kymographion in 1867 by the aid of a tin-plate worker near the Middlesex Hospital, to which he was then attached, there was not, with the exception of a few specimens of Marey’s sphygmograph, a single recording physiological instrument in use in the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2243026x_0004.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
