Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/105

  with the discovery that in gout the blood contains an increased quantity of uric acid, and recent work has tended, in the main, to confirm his views. He announced this discovery in 1848 to the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society (of which he was vice-president in 1880–1). He also separated rheumatoid arthritis from gout, with which it had previously been confused.

At the Medical Society of London, of which he was orator in 1858 and president in 1860, Garrod gave in 1857 the Lettsomian lectures 'On the Pathology and Treatment of Gout.' He long enjoyed an extensive practice, but when old age diminished his work as a consultant he returned with ardour to his chemical investigations.

Garrod died in London on 28 Dec. 1907, and was buried in the Great Northern cemetery, Southgate. He married in 1845 Elizabeth Ann (d. 1891), daughter of Henry Colchester and Elizabeth Sparrow, of the Ancient or Sparrow House in Ipswich. Charles Keene of 'Punch' [q.v.] and Meredith Townsend [q. V. Suppl. II] of the 'Spectator' were Lady Garrod's first cousins. He had issue four sons and two daughters. The eldest son, Alfred Henry [q, v.], and the fourth son, Archibald Edward, were, like their father, elected fellows of the Royal Society. The third son, Herbert Baring, was general secretary of the Teachers' Guild of Great Britain and Ireland (1886-1909). Garrod was author of: 1. 'Treatise on Gout and Rheumatic Gout,' 1859; 3rd edit. 1876, translated into French and German. 2. 'Essentials of Materia Medica and Therapeutics,' 1855; 13th edit. 1890, edited by Nestor Tirard, M.D. He also contributed articles on gout and rheumatism to Reynolds's 'System of Medicine,' 1866, vol. i.

 GARTH, RICHARD (1820–1903), chief justice of Bengal, born at Morden, Surrey, on 11 March 1820, was eldest son of the six children of Richard Lowndes (afterwards Garth), rector of Farnham, Surrey, by his wife Mary, daughter of Robert Douglas, rector of Salwarpe, Worcestershire. His father was the second son of Wilham Lowndes of Baldwin Brightwell, Oxfordshire, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Richard Garth of Morden, and assumed the name and arms of Garth on succeeding to his mother's property in 1837. In due course Richard became lord of the manor of Morden.

He was educated at Eton, where he played in the cricket elevens of 1837-8, and at Chist Church, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1842 and M.A. in 1845. He was a member of the university cricket eleven from 1839 to 1842, and its captain in 1840 and 1841. Admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn on 9 July 1842, he was called to the bar there on 19 Nov. 1847. Joining the home circuit, he gained great popularity in the profession, and especial repute in commercial cases heard at the Guildhall. For many years he was counsel to the Incorporated Law Society. He took silk on 24 July 1866, and was two days later elected a bencher of his inn. In the 1866-8 parliament he represented Guildford in the conservative interest, but was defeated at the next general election. In 1875 he was appointed chief justice of Bengal and was knighted (13 May). A bluff, genial, fresh-complexioned man, he looked more like a country squire or a naval officer than a judge. Popular with all classes of society in Calcutta, he did much to bring the European and Indian communities into closer social touch. His judicial decisions were marked by learning, patience, and practical good sense, and were rarely reversed by the judicial committee of the privy council.

Garth came into frequent conflict with the Bengal government. The views of the high court were then systematically sought on legislative proposals, and Garth framed confidential minutes. But at the same time he often gave subsequent public utterance to pronounced opinions about the proposed legislation. The most notable example of such practice was his vigorous propaganda against the Bengal tenancy bill, designed to give the cultivators in the permanently settled areas clearly defined and transferable occupancy rights, and passed into law after much controversy in 1885. In a published 'Minute' (Calcutta, 1882, 18 pp. folio) he declared the measure to be ruinous for the zamindars and to embody a policy of confiscation. His sincerity was unquestioned, but it was improper for the chief justice to engage in partisan controversy over legislation which he would probably have to interpret judicially. He showed sympathy with Indian aspirations. He promoted the Legal Practitioners Act of 1879, and he insisted that one of the three additional judges appointed to the Bengal high court in 1885 should be an Indian.

Ill-health led to his retirement in March 1886, shortly before he had qualified for 