Elliotson (John, M.D., F.R.S.), an eminent medical man, b. London, 1791. He became physician at St. Thomas's Hospital in 1822, and made many contributions to medical science. By new prescriptions of quinine, creasote, etc., he excited much hostility in the profession. He was the first in this country to advocate the use of the stethoscope. He was also the first physician to discard knee-breeches and silk stockings, and to wear a beard. In '31 he was chosen Professor at University College, but, becoming an advocate of curative mesmerism, he resigned his appointments, '38. He was founder and President of the London Phrenological Society, and, in addition to many medical works, edited the Zoist (thirteen vols.), translated Blumenbach's Physiology, and wrote an introduction to Engledue's Cerebral Physiology, defending materialism. Thackeray dedicated Pendennis to him, '50, and he received a tribute of praise from Dickens. Died at London, 29 July, 1868. Eichthal (Gustave d'), French writer, b. of Jewish family, Nancy, 22 March, 1804. He became a follower of Saint Simon, was one of the founders of the Société d'Ethnologie, and published Les Evangiles, a critical analysis of the gospels, 2 vols, Paris, '63. This he followed by The Three Great Mediterranean Nations and Christianity and Socrates and our Time, '84. He died at Paris, April, 1886, and his son published his Mélanges de Critique Biblique (Miscellanies of Biblical Criticism), in which there is an able study on the name and character of "Jahveh." Emerson (Ralph Waldo), American essayist, poet, and philosopher, b. Boston 25 May, 1803. He came of a line of ministers, and was brought up like his father, educated at Harvard College, and ordained as a Unitarian minister, 1829. Becoming too broad for the Church, he resigned in '32. In the next year he came to Europe, visiting Carlyle. On his return he settled at Concord, giving occasional lectures, most of which have been published. He wrote to the Dial, a transcendentalist paper. Tending to idealistic pantheism, but without systematic philosophy, all his writings are most suggestive, and he is always the champion of mental freedom, self-reliance, and the free pursuit of science. Died at Concord, 27 April, 1882. Matthew Arnold has pronounced his essays "the most important work done in prose" in this century. Emerson (William), English mathematician, b. Hurworth, near Darlington, 14 May, 1701. He conducted a school and wrote numerous works on Mathematics. His vigorous, if eccentric, individuality attracted Carlyle, who said to Mrs. Gilchrist, "Emerson was a Freethinker who looked on his neighbor, the parson, as a humbug. He seems to have defended himself in silence the best way he could against the noisy clamor and unreal stuff going on around him." Died 21 May, 1782. He compiled a list of Bible contradictions.