This Basil Valentine (to accept the only name we have) did so much for the science of the composition of substances that he eminently deserves the designation that has been given him of the last of the alchemists and the first of the chemists. There is practically a universal recognition of the fact now that he deserves also the title of the Founder of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, not only because of the value of the observations contained in his writings, but also because of the fact that they proved so suggestive to certain scientific geniuses during the century succeeding Valentine's life. Almost more than to have added to the precious heritage of knowledge for mankind, it is a boon for a scientific observer to have awakened the spirit of observation in others, and to be the founder of a new school of thought. This Basil Valentine undoubtedly did, and, in the Renaissance, the incentive from his writings for such men as Paracelsus is easy to appreciate. Besides, his work furnishes evidence that the investigating spirit was abroad just when it is usually supposed not to have been, for the Thuringian monk surely did not do all his investigation alone, but must have owed, as well as given, many a suggestion to his contemporaries. Some ten years ago, when Sir Michael Foster, professor of physiology in the University of Cambridge, England, was invited to deliver the Lane Lectures at the Cooper Medical College in San Francisco, he took for his subject "The History of Physiology." In the course of his lecture on "The Rise of Chemical Physiology" he began with the name of Basil Valentine, who first attracted men's attention to the many chemical substances around them that might be used in the treatment of disease, and said of him: