Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/89

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Gairdner
69
Gale

University of Glasgow. From 1863 to 1872 he was also inodical officer of health to the city, and during that period he remodelled the sanitary arrangements (cf. Public Health Administration in Glasgow, a memorial volume of the writings of Dr. J. B. Russell, Glasgow, 1905, with a preface by Gairdner; chaps, i. and ii. detail Gairdner's labours).

Gairdner was an exceptionally attractive lecturer, teaching the diagnosis of disease with singular thoroughness, and illuminating the subject in hand by means of a wide literary culture. Despite his activity as both teacher and consultant, he continued throughout his career his contributions to professional literature. In scarcely any department in medicine did he fail to add something new, in regard either to pathological changes or to clinical appearances. A series of early papers, 'Contributions to the Pathology of the Kidney' (Edinburgh, 1848), supplied an early description of waxy disease, and there was originality of view in 'The Pathological Anatomy of Bronchitis and the Diseases of the Lung connected with Bronchial Obstruction' (Edinburgh, 1850). Later he produced 'Insanity : Modern Views as to its Nature and Treatment' (Glasgow, 1885), and lectures upon 'Tabes Mesenterica' (Glasgow, 1888).

Among the matters on which he threw original light of great value were the intimate connection between arterial supply and myocardial changes; the reciprocal influence of the heart and lungs; hypertrophy and dilatation; the system of representing the sounds and murmurs of the heart by means of diagrams; the recognition of tricuspid obstruction, aneurism, and angina pectoris; and with Stokes, Balfour and Fagge he helped to make certain the diagnosis of mitral obstruction. His last contribution to circulatory disease was the article on aneurism in Clifford Allbutt's 'System of Medicine' (vol. vi. 1889).

Gairdner gave many public addresses on general topics. The chief of these were collected under the titles of 'The Physician as Naturalist' (Glasgow, 1889), and 'The Three Things that Abide' (1903). Gairdner retired from the chair of medicine in Glasgow in 1890, when he returned to his native city. Many distinctions were granted him. He was made hon. LL.D. of Edinburgh in 1883, and hon. M.D. of Dublin in 1887; was F.R.S. in 1892; hon. F.R.C.P. Ireland in 1887; physician-in-ordinary to Queen Victoria in 1881; honorary physician to King Edward VII in 1901; member of the general council of medical education and registration, an representative of the University of Glasgow, 1894; president of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1893-4; and president of the British Medical Association when it met in Glasgow in 1888. He was created K.C.B. in 1898.

During the last seven years of his life, while his intellectual interests and energies were unimpaired, Gairdner suffered from an obscure affection of the heart, the symptoms of which he carefully recorded. He died suddenly at Edinburgh on 28 June 1907. In accordance with his wish, a complete account of the clinical and pathological conditions of his disease was published by the present writer, in association with Dr. W. T. Ritchie. His portrait, painted by Sir George Reid, is in the University of Glasgow.

Gairdner married, in 1870, Helen Bridget, daughter of Mr. Wright of Norwich; she survived him with four sons and three daughters.

[Proc. Roy. See. 80 B, 1908; Life, by G. A. Gibson, in preparation; Lancet and Brit. Med. Journal, 6 July 1907; Edinburgh Med. Journal, Scottish Med. and Surg. Journal, and Glasgow Med. Journal, Aug. 1907.]

G. A. G.


GALE, FREDERICK (1823–1904), cricketer and writer on cricket under the pseudonym of 'The Old Buffer,' born at Woodborough, Pewseyvale, near Devizes, on 16 July 1823, was son of Thomas Hinxman Gale, rector of Woodborough and afterwards vicar of Godmersham, near Canterbury, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Dr. Poore of Andover. After attending Dr. Buckland's preparatory school at Laleham, Gale was from 1836 to 1841 at Winchester College, of which a great-uncle. Dr. W. S. Goddard [q. v.], was a former headmaster. While at Winchester he played in the cricket eleven against Eton and Harrow in 1841, and in 1845 he played once both for Kent and for the Gentlemen of Kent against the Gentlemen of England. He was a hard hitter and a good fieldsman, but after leaving Winchester gave little time to the practice of the game.

Articled to a member of the London firm of Messrs. Bircham & Co., solicitors, Gale long worked with them as parliamentary clerk, and afterwards as parliamentary agent on his own account. But, deeply interested in cricket and other games, he devoted much time to writing about them, and he gradually abandoned legal business