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He received the Companionship of the Bath in 1871; is a Fellow of the Royal Society, of the Royal Geographical Societies of London, Berlin, and Turin, and a Member of the Academy of Sciences of Paris. Admiral Richards has been engaged in and conducted many nautical surveys of foreign countries—China, the Falkland Isles, Rio de la Plata, New Zealand, Australia, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, &c.; was a Queen's Commissioner for settling the Oregon boundary from 1856 to 1862; and Hydrographer of the Admiralty from 1863 to 1874. He was knighted in 1877.
RICHARDSON, Benjamin Ward, M,D., F.R.S., born Oct. 31, 1828, at Somerby, in the county of Leicester, was educated at the school of the Rev. W. Y. Nutt, at Burrow-on-the-Hill, Leicestershire, and at Anderson's University, Glasgow. He graduated in medicine at the University of St. Andrews in 1854, and received the honorary degree of M.A. from the same university in 1859. He gained the Fothergilian Gold Medal in 1854, for an essay on the diseases of the child before birth; and the Astley Cooper prize of £300 in 1856, for an essay on the coagulation of the blood. Dr. Richardson became a member of the Royal College of Physicians by examination in 1856, and was elected a Fellow of the College in 1861; he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1867, and Croonian Lecturer in 1873; honorary member of the Philosophical Society of America in 1863; of the Imperial Leopold Carolina Academy of Sciences in 1867; and of the Physiological and Statistical Academy of Milan in 1870. In 1865 he conducted an Experimental research on the nature of the poisons of the spreading of contagious diseases, which ended in the detection of a special poisonous product, common in these poisons, to which he gave the name of septine. In 1866 he discovered the application of ether spray for the local abolition of pain in surgical operations. He introduced methylene bi-chloride as a general anæsthetic, and discovered the controlling influence of nitrate of amyl over tetanus and other spasmodic affections. He originated, and for some years edited, the Journal of Public Health, and afterwards the Social Science Review. Dr. Richardson's principal contributions to medical and scientific literature have been directed to the advancement of medical practice by the experimental method. The study of disease by synthesis; the restoration of life after various forms of apparent death; the investigation of the theory of a nervous atmosphere or ether; the effects of electricity on animal life; methods of killing animals intended for food without the infliction of pain; numerous original papers on new medicines and new modes of treatment of diseases; and a series of researches on alcohol in relation to its action on man, the results of which were delivered before the Society of Arts in the Cantor Course of Lectures for 1874-5. Dr. Richardson has been president of the Medical Society of London and four times president of the St. Andrew's Medical Graduates Association. In 1869 he succeeded Lord Jerviswoode as assessor for the General Council in the University Court of St. Andrews. He is Honorary Physician to the Royal Literary Fund, the Newspaper Press Fund, and the National Society of Schoolmasters. In 1868, "in recognition of his various contributions to science and medicine," he was presented by six hundred of his medical brethren and fellows in science with a testimonial consisting of a microscope by Ross and one thousand guineas. At the Social Science Congress held at Brighton in Oct., 1875, he read a paper which excited interest and