FLETCHER 393 FLETCHER by leading members of the profession on Janu- ary 11, 1906, and the unique award of the gold medal of the Royal College of Surgeons (1910), a distinction which had been con- ferred upon only eleven physicians in ninety years, most prominent of whom were Parkin- son (1822), Thomas Bevill Peacock (1876), Sir Richard Owen (1833), Sir W. J. Eras- mus Wilson (1884), Sir James Paget (1897) and Lord Lister (1897). He also received honorary medical degrees from Columbian University (1884), and from his original alma mater at Bristol, which he was pleased to ob- tain only a few days before his death. During his later years he was the oldest living grad- uate of the London Hospital. Dr. Fletcher was vigorous and active up to the last two years of his life. A severe at- tack of diphtheria in the spring of 1911 brought on a condition of enfeebled health, which he bravely weathered, but to which he gradually succumbed, dying on the morning of November 8, 1912. He was buried at Arling- ton with the honors commensurate with the militar- rank he had attained. Dr. Fletcher was survived by a daughter, who was the wife of General Leon A. Matile, United States Army, and by his son. Cap- tain Robert H. Fletcher, United States Army (retired), whose charming literary produc- tions are well known. Another son. Lieuten- ant Arthur H. Fletcher, United States Navy (retired), died in 1911. During his long life. Dr. Fletcher was the author of many interesting contributions to the literature of anthropology and the his- tory of medicine, which may be listed in chronological order, as follows: "On Prehis- toric Trephining and Cranial Amulets," 1882 ; "Paul Broca and the French School of Anthro- pologj-, 1882: "Human Proportion in Art and Anthropometry," 1883; "A Study of Some Re- cent Experiments in Serpent Venom," 1883; "Tatooing Among a Civilized People," 1883; "Myths of the Robin Redbreast in Early Eng- lish Poetry," 1889 ; "The Vigor and E.xpressive- ness of Older English," 1890 ; "The New School of Criminal .Anthropology," 1891 ; "The Poet- Is Tie Born, Not Made?" 1893: "Anatomy and .Art," 189.T; "Brief Memoirs of Colonel Ger- rick Mallery, United States Army," 1895; "Medical Lore in the Older English Dramatists and Poets," 189S; "The Witches' Pharmaco- pceia." 1896; "Scopelism," 1897; "A Tragedy of the Great Plague of Milan in 1630," 1898; "William Whitney Gooding," 1900; "A Rare Reprint of a Rare Work of Vesalius," 1909; "Columns of Infamy," 1912; "Diseases Bearing the Names of Saints," 1912. Of these, the monograph on "Prehistoric Trephining," 1882. the first handling of the subject in English, is a good example of his capacity for exhausive research and direct- ness of statement, containing everything known on the subject up to the time of its publication. As an instance, we may say that the cranial mutilation which was observed in prehistoric skulls by Manouvier in 1893 and described by him as the "sincipital T" had been already noted by Dr. Fletcher, in 1882 (p. 28), as a common practice among the natives of the Loyalty Islands, as first described by the Rev. Samuel Ella, an English missionary in 1874. The "Tragedy of the Great Plague at Milan" (1898) is a remarkable piece of syn- thetic work, the story having been developed ab initio from a rare old Italian engraving. The paper on "Medical Lore in the Older English Dramatists and Poets" (1895) is the most scholarly and thoroughgoing treatment of the subject in English, forming, as it were, a medical pendant to Charles Lamb's im- mortal "Specimens" from the Elizabethan poets. Dr. Fletcher had a wonderfully re- tentive memory for poetic citations, often quot- ing the most recondite things offhand, and his papers on the poetry of his native land were perhaps those dearest to his heart. He was especially interested in bird lore, and he selected most of the poetic mottos descrip- tive of birds in the Smithsonian Institution. It had been his cherished intention lo en- large his essay on the Robin Redbreast with the valuable material which he had coilectei! through many years, and it is hoped that this paper will some day appear in extended form. Up to the time of his last illness, Dr. Fletcher maintained a most active interest in recent advances in medicine and in scientific and secular literature. He read most modern books that were worth reading, and commented freely upon them. As he had a definite con- tempt for weakness of character and mental ineptitude, he thought but little of the mud- dled logic, the sentimental glorification of crime, which disfigures the writings of Nietzsche and his school. On being shown a portrait of the unfortunate Nietzsche, with the Cro-Magnon jaw and "eyes of a trapped wolf," he handed back the picture with the brief humorous coinment : "Hardly the sort of man one would care to meet in the tradi- tional dark lane on a rainy night." In person, Dr. Fletcher was the tall, digni- fied, stately and disiingui gentleman of the old school, much respected by old and young alike for his cheerful stoicism and military prompti- tude, his ready wit and courtly ways. In the
