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mouth of Cerimon in Pericles, the qualities of the physician, in these days the only scientist, are delineated:
I held it ever,
Virtue and cunning (note 36) were endowments greater
Than nobleness and riches: careless heirs
May the two latter darken and expend;
But immortality attends the former
Making a man a god. ‘Tis known I ever
Having studied physick, through which secret art
By turning o’er authorities, I have
(Together with my practice) made familiar
To me and to my aid, the blest infusions
That dwell in vegetives, in metals, stones:
And I can speak of the disturbances
That nature works, and of her cures, which give me
A more content in course of true delight
Than to be thirsty after tottering honour,
Or tie my treasure up in silken bags
To please the fool – and death.”
Act III. Sc. II
He had served under three Dukes of Newcastle, as Presidents of The Royal Institution to whose unflagging support both The Royal Institution and he himself owed so much. His own devotion to The Royal Institution was matched by that of his wife. During the war she was plagued with poor health and “I was anxious” he said “to get her to move to Cambridge because, as I told her, the Germans would never bomb Cambridge. But nothing would induce her to leave The Institution.” At the conclusion of his speech Sir James invited the audience to partake of Lady Dewar’s and his hospitality “and to hear my fiddle played”.
As early as 1872 James Dewar had become interested in the calculation of solar temperature, an interest which was resurrected in the closing years of his life. He now began to apply an ingeniously designed charcoal thermoscope – a modification of the one he had made more than forty years previously – to discover the radiation from the sky by both day and night: from the sun at all seasons of the year and during an eclipse, as well as from the moon, the clouds and the stars. This thermoscope was erected immediately below a sliding panel in the roof of one of the laboratories of The Royal Institution. There, in his small private observatory, even when beyond his eightieth birthday, Sir James kept solitary vigil watching the heavens at all hours, and recording the varying radiation through the changing sequences of weather conditions. It was thus that his friend of many years, Professor Armstrong, saw him for the last time late on a March evening of 1923. That night Sir James fell suddenly ill and on March 20th he passed away. This last meeting was the picture, says Professor Armstrong, which “was the one above all others he liked to cherish of his old dear friend, as a silent watcher of the skies and a life-long seeker after truth”. The scene reminds us of what was said of another celebrated explorer, Mallory, who kept pushing his way upwards on the slopes of the as yet unconquered Mount Everest, “Last seen, making for the top”.
The tidings of Sir James Dewar’s death, though at the advanced age of eighty-one, evoked many expressions of sorrow and a multitude of tributes to his genius and character. The first message of sympathy received by Lady Dewar came, through Lord Stamfordham, from King George V and Queen Mary. It read: “The King and Queen have heard with much regret of the death of Sir James Dewar and desire me to express their true sympathy with you in your loss – a loss which will be shared by the whole world of science.” All the national newspapers contained extensive obituaries in which were outlined his distinguished career and his unique contributions to numerous aspects of scientific research and in particular to chemistry. The Times, after referring to him as “one of the most brilliant experimentalists of his time” proceeded to have a detailed account of his principal scientific achievements and concluded with a list of the many honours conferred upon him by universities at home and abroad and by scientific societies in his native land and overseas. In a Third Leader - ... NEXT PAGE
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