Our William Stokes was the second son of Whitley Stokes, and was born in Dublin in 1804. Like many another distinguished investigator in science, he was not looked upon as a bright student as a boy, and indeed could be prevailed upon to interest himself only very slightly in what is usually {187} considered to be the absolutely necessary fundamental work in education. He had a great love for poetry and romance, which indeed he carried with him all his life. The Scottish Border Ballads were his favorite reading, and he spent days in committing them to memory. Almost needless to say his apparent indolence and disinclination to any steady, methodical system of study were, as his son, the late Sir William Stokes, records in his biography of his father, sources of real concern to his parents, and caused his mother specially much anxious thought. One day while reading his favorite author, Sir Walter Scott, he fell asleep--to be awakened shortly after by some warm drops falling on his face. He started up to find his mother bending over him. It was her tears that had awakened him. Stung with remorse at having been the cause of so much sorrow to the mother whom he loved very dearly, his nature underwent an immediate and salutary change, and the dreamy, indolent boy became thereafter the ardent and enthusiastic student. Stokes amply made up for any neglect of study there might have been in his boyhood days as soon as he entered upon the medical course to which he felt called. Here he came to be looked upon as one of the most ardent and painstaking of students. His preliminary medical studies were begun in Dublin at the Meath Hospital. Chemistry he learned in the laboratory of Trinity College and anatomy in the Royal College of Surgeons. After spending several years thus he went to Glasgow, where for two years more he was occupied mainly at chemistry in the laboratory of Professor Thompson. Like most of the young Irishmen of his time, he next proceeded to Edinburgh in order to complete his education in clinical medicine and, if possible, obtain his medical degree from that famous institution. It was at Edinburgh, under the magnetic {188} influence of that great teacher, Allison, that Stokes began to develop the rare powers of original observation which at an early age placed him in the front rank of the best medical men of the time.