Next to the illustrious Scotchman whom we have just dismissed, comes a very worthy native of the Emerald Isle—Hans Sloane, the son of Alexander Sloane, the head of a colony of Scotchmen, who, in the reign of James I. settled in the north of Ireland. Hans was born at Killileagh, in the year 1660. He very early showed a liking for Natural History, and on his arrival in London attended lectures on Anatomy, Botany, and their kindred sciences, and formed a close intimacy with Boyle and Ray. After four years study he visited Paris and Montpellier, in which places he took his degrees in Medicine. In 1684 he returned to London and commenced practice, being a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the College of Physicians. On the appointment of the Duke of Albemarle to the government of Jamaica he accompanied that nobleman, and thus acquired a rich addition to his Museum of Natural History. George the First created him a Baronet, and on the death of Sir Isaac Newton, he became President of the Royal Society—estimable as a man, and eminent in science, he lived to a great age, and at his decease, bequeathed his museum to the nation, conditionally on the sum of £20,000 being paid to his executors for the benefit of his survivors: this sum bore no proportion to the value of his collection, and as it laid the foundation of the British Museum, it must ever be regarded as a patriotic and generous act. A curious illustration of the observant mind of Sir H. Sloane is furnished by the fact of his having noticed that the natives of the West Indian Islands, who eat much of the green fat of the turtle, perspired a yellow oil; the explanation being that the true green fat of the turtle is a green-coloured cellular tissue enclosing a yellow oil, which passes through the system undigested. The anatomical data on which this statement is advanced have been, at a comparatively recent period, verified by actual experiments performed by the late Dr. Pereira, assisted by our much esteemed former President, Dr. Daldy. It occurred to my mind that this fact in dietetics might present a lesson of caution to an audience peculiarly exposed, as citizens of London, to the temptation of eating a material, which, however appetising, is incapable of healthy assimilation. In a sketch of such limited pretension we are compelled to pass over names well deserving a niche in the temple of Esculapius:—every letter of the alphabet furnishes its contingent. To many of the men, into whose labours we have here entered, the civilised world is indebted for their contributions to general literature, as well as to the science of medicine; and in our endeavour to chronicle their importance, we can never cease to admire the fertility of their talents, and the extent of their industry in bringing to light so much useful knowledge out of the scanty materials by which their enquiries were aided:—Akenside, Bacon, Boyle, Blackmore, Cheselden, Darwin, Petty, Ray, among others, may be noted as examples.