PROF. ADRIAN STOKES. T HE death of Dr. Adrian Stokes, Dunn professor of patholog s Hospital Medical School, Univer · ~L on,·has robbed pathology, an the re med· ne, of one who, though he h""l"IA"'LfF'd.y accom lished much, had not yet reac the height of his powers, and his loss, at the early age of forty, is the more poignant because of the tragic circumstances which surround it. Adrian Stokes was the youngest son of Mr. Henry John Stokes, and was born at Lausanne in 1887. There was a strong medical tradition in the family, for many of his forbears had left names to conjure with in Irish medicine. At Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1910, he early gave promise of brilliance, for he not only gained numerous academic distinctions, but he was also a keen athlete and was a worthy member of one of the strongest cricket elevens that has represented his Alma Mater. After doing the usual house appointments, Stokes spent eight months at the Rockefeller Institute in New York, and then returned to Dublin where he joined the staff of Prof. O'Sullivan. Henceforth he devoted himself whole-heartedly to the study of pathology and bacteriology, and he had become an expert in laboratory technique when the War broke out in 1914. He at once obtained a commission in the R.A.M.C. and served in France throughout the War. Although actually attached to a casualty clearing station as a specialist in pathology and bacteriology, Stokes took the broadest view of his duties and responsibilities. He equipped his motor cycle and sidecar with an incubator, setting up what was in effect the first mobile laboratory in France, and his work did much to restrict the incidence of typhoid fever in the early days of the War. Of the original work which Stokes carried out during this time, his investigations into the cause and mode of transmission of spirochretal jaundice was probably the most important. He identified the spirochrete and demonstrated its presence in the bodies and urine of trench rats, a discovery which led to the suppression of what might have become a very serious epidemic. But it was not only in his own particular branch that Stokes did brilliant work. He was the inspiration of the mess in which he lived. Full of energy and ingenuity, he not only lent a hand wherever one was required, but also he tackled the problems of others and applied his knowledge of laboratory technique to solving their difficulties. He kept himself up to date in the various new methods of treatment and, as soon as he was convinced of their superiority he never rested until they had been adopted in his immediate vicinity. ' Brass hats ' were to him the means of obtaining what he felt was necessary for the good of the sick, gassed and wounded, and his vehement, but clear and cogent, demands for apparatus, drugs, etc., were very rarely unsuccessful. All this he effected while maintaining his own

special department at the height of efficiency. Those who served with him aver that he did more than any other single individual to improve the medical treatment of the troops and to diminish wastage. On demobilisation in 1919, Stokes was appointed to the chair of bacteriology and preventive medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, but in 1920 he was invited by the Rockefeller Foundation, who had been greatly impressed by his work on spirochretal jaundice already mentioned, to join the West African Yellow Fever Commission. It happened that during his visit to Africa very few cases of yellow fever occurred, and his work was necessarily indeterminate. In 1922, Stokes was appointed to the Sir William Dunn chair of pathology at Guy's Hospital Medical School in the University of London, which he occupied at the time of his death. He did much to improve the status of pathology in the School, and he was tireless in his efforts to arouse interest and to stimulate research. Intensely practical in his teaching, he succeeded in attracting brilliant students, and, given the time, he would have created a school of pathologists keen to tackle problems whose solutions might lead to advances in medicine. In April of this year Dr. Beeuwkes, the head of the Rockefeller West African Yellow Fever Com - mission, asked for Stokes's help, for the problem of yellow fever in West Africa was little nearer solution than it had been in 1920. Indeed, it was still uncertain whether it was identical with the yellow fever of South America. The latter disease is carried by Stegomyia Jasciata, the common domestic mosquito, and Noguchi has described a leptospira as the causative organism. Stokes obtained leave of absence from Guy's for six months and sailed for Lagos in May. He was not particularly hopeful of succeeding where others had failed, and his first letters spoke of negative results. In July the outlook was brighter, and in the middle of August he wrote that he had succeeded in transmitting the disease from the human pat.ient to monkeys, both by blood infection and through the medium of mosquitoes. No leptospirre had been found, and he was satisfied that the cause had not yet been isolated. He was then engaged in the microscopical examination of infected mosquitoes in serial section. "It is infuriating to know that one has the virus under one's eyes and cannot see it," he wrote at that time. Then on Sept. 16 came a cable to say that Stokes was seriously ill. He was removed that day to the European Hospital, where he died of yellow fever on Sept. 19. How he contrncted the disease is not yet certain, but it would appear highly probable that he infected himself accidentally in his laboratory. Time alone can show the value of his work on the disease to which he fell a victim; but if, as appears certain, he has helped materially towards the discovery of the cause of yellow fever in West Africa, he would not have counted the cost.

In Stokes's public and private life, transparent honesty and sincerity irradiated his every word and every action ; outspoken and candid, he never left any doubt as to his meaning and' to beat about the bush ' was foreign to his nature. His energy and his capacity for work were amazing, and all the more so when one remembers that his greatest enemy was insomnia, and that for him five hours was an unusirnlly good night's sleep. As a teacher, he preached the gospel of scientific truth with an earnestness born of conviction. His students absorbed from him the right critical attitude towards their work, and the best of them became infected with his own zeal for research. He was generous to a fault, and many a lame dog was helped over a stile without ever knowing whence his help had come. An Irishman by everything but the accident of his birthplace, he loved his country as deeply as he hated those whom he regarded as being responsible for her unhappy state, which was a source of real grief to him. Stokes died in harness, as he would have wiRhed to die, but his premature dea1,h will be widely

mourned by all who arc interested in the advancement of med~c~l knowledge, and eRpecially by those who were privileged to come into intimate contact with_ a personality so vigorous, so stimulating, and so kmdly. T. B. ,T.