disease elsewhere than in the eye’. The accuracy and clearness of the illustrations, from the author’s own pen, made them for long the standard illustrations in the subject, and the book became an influential work and was translated into Italian and German. In 1880 Gowers published the revision of a previous lecture, Diagnosis of Diseases of the Spinal Cord, in which was described for the first time the tract of nerve-fibres in the spinal cord, subsequently known as ‘Gowers’s tract’, a name which he always deprecated. The book was an illuminating contribution to the literature of a then obscure subject, and showed the author as an investigator who could relate clinical data with pathological facts, and develop a scheme of precise regional diagnosis. His greatest book, A Manual of Diseases of the Nervous System (1886), became a work of international repute. Gowers was prolific as a lecturer, and as a writer careful of fact and lucid in style. There were few neurological problems on which his published opinion was not forthcoming. The condition of epilepsy deeply interested him, and to it he gave long and close attention. His Epilepsy (1881) was still the standard authority at the time of his death.
Gowers made daily use of his skill in stenography and urged pupils and house-physicians to do the same, for the purpose of taking notes of cases and lectures. He founded the society of medical phonographers and was its first president. He was able to etch and draw general subjects as easily as medical, and his etchings made during holidays in East Anglia were often exhibited, once at the Royal Academy. In the ’eighties the National Hospital in Queen Square was Gowers’s teaching centre, and partly through him came to have an international reputation. He was a careful observer and, thanks to his combination of knowledge from the laboratory and the hospital wards, a bold and incisive teacher. But, at most times strained and tired by overwork, he might appear to some dogmatic and impatient of criticism in his discussion of a case. The writing of the Manual had cost him much effort and had a lasting effect on his mental vigour. If not a neurologist with the originality and inspiration of Hughlings Jackson, Gowers was nevertheless a great clinician and by his writings made it possible for the medical world of his time to understand scientific neurology. He was knighted in 1897. Gowers married in 1875 Mary (died 1913), daughter of Frederick Baines, of Leeds, and had two sons and two daughters. He died in London 4 May 1915.
[British Medical Journal, 1915, vol. i, p. 1055; Lancet, 1915, vol. i, p. 828; private information.]
GRACE, WILLIAM GILBERT (1848–1915), cricketer, was born 18 July 1848, the fourth of five sons of Henry Mills Grace, a doctor living at Downend, near Bristol, by his wife, Martha, daughter of George Pocock, proprietor of a boarding school at St. Michael’s Mill, Bristol. He was educated privately, at Bristol Medical School, and at St. Bartholomew’s and Westminster Hospitals; and, after qualifying M.R.C.S. (England) and L.R.C.P. (Edinburgh), began to practise as a surgeon in Bristol (1879).
There was enthusiasm for cricket in Grace’s home; both his father and his uncle (Alfred Pocock) were keen exponents, and Grace and his brothers received much careful tuition in every branch of the game. They joined in local matches at an early age, and the third son, Edward Mills Grace [q.v.], brought the family name into first-class cricket about 1862. With reference to his success, his mother, an enthusiast and a competent judge, said that she had a younger son who would be a better batsman because his back-play was sounder. This forecast was soon fulfilled, and in 1865 Gilbert Grace, as he was usually called, was chosen, while still under seventeen, to play for the Gentlemen v. the Players both at Kennington Oval and at Lord’s. In the first match (3 July) he went in eighth and made 23, and, not out, 12. Though played, it is said, more for his bowling than his batting, he was sent in first at Lord’s in the following week, and his second innings of 34 helped the Gentlemen, who had not beaten the Players since 1853, to a victory by eight wickets.
Grace was famous chiefly as a batsman, but he was first-rate both as a bowler and a fieldsman. Originally a medium pace bowler, he afterwards adopted a slower delivery, and took many wickets. Some of his greatest batting feats were followed up by bowling which, if not equally good, was equally successful. His bowling was often freely hit, but he never lost his length, and persevered with an optimism which, when he himself was captain, was thought at times to be scarcely warranted. His fielding, when he was a tall and athletic youth, was admirable in any position, but especially to his own bowling. In later life his massive figure is recalled at point, where
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