Page:Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, volume 1.djvu/138

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110


A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

By W. CARNEGIE BROWN, M.D., M.R.C.P.


(Friday, January 17th, 1908)

To the ordinary student of Tropical Medicine, who reads Protozoology, not so much with the hope of acquiring special knowledge as with the intention of keeping au courant with advances made in a science that so nearly touches his own subject, there is no more striking fact than the repeated and authoritative citation of the name and work of Schaudinn. And when we reflect, further, that all this vast amount and variety of research was achieved in the short span of a life that did not extend to thirty-five years, that the facts adduced were, mostly, entirely new, that the work was addressed to men whose business it is to be wary and circumspect—men who have only too much reason to say of alleged discoveries that, if new, they are not true, and if true, they are not new—when we think of all these things, I say, we are constrained to ask the question, "What manner of man was this?" Yet, beyond actual workers in biological science, few in England know anything of the personality, of the human element in Schaudinn's career. Striking and phenomenal as it was, our own contemporary literature has almost passed it by, and it is only by treading somewhat unbeaten tracks in Continental records that one may hope to obtain even such a meagre gleaning of details as I venture to offer you to-night.

Frederick, or familiarly, and as he preferred to be called.