He did it, of course, in his own way, and under the necessary influence of his habits and predispositions. One natural result of his labours, as secretary and as editor, was a frequent prominence of medical subjects, both at the meetings and in the subsequent selections for permanent record. If such a prominence might now and then give, or seem to give, fair ground of complaint to men whose thoughts were absorbed in the calculus of fluxions, or whose eyes were wont to search the heavens that they might learn the courses of the stars, it had at least the excuse that it tended to the elevation—in all senses of the word—of a profession in the thorough education and the dignified status of which all the world have a deep interest. If SLOANE, in his day, occasionally made scientific men somewhat more familiar with medical themes than they cared to be, he did very much to make medical men aware of the peculiar duty under which their profession laid them of becoming also men of true science. And in this way he exerted an influence upon medical knowledge, which was none the less pregnant with good and enduring results because it was in great measure an indirect influence. It was one of the minor, but memorable, results of the establishment of the Royal Society that it tended powerfully to lift medical practice out of the slough of quackery. This frequent reading of medical papers during the Doctor’s secretaryship could not fail to give an opening, now and again, for the wit of the scorner. A physician, in his daily practice, is constantly seeing the power of small things. He may well, at times, over estimate trifles. In the year 1700, Dr. SLOANE was made the subject of a satirical pamphlet which appeared under the title of ‘_The Transactioneer, with some of his Philosophical Fancies_.’ The author of the satire was Dr. William KING, but, for a considerable time, the authorship was unknown. There was great anxiety to discover it, not only on SLOANE’S part individually, but on the part of the Council at large. The whole affair was trivial, and would be unworthy of memory but that it led to some dissensions within the Society itself, which for a long time left marks of their influence. [Sidenote: SLOANE AND WOODWARD.]