Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/299

 of court, counsel, or jury as to his views. Another noteworthy characteristic was the candour and impartiality he invariably displayed.’ He set his face strongly against partisanship in medical and scientific testimony, and refused large fees in consequence. As an experimentalist he risked his own life several times, tasting arsenious acid, eating an ounce of the root of ‘Œnanthe crocata,’ taking a large dose of Calabar bean, and almost paralysing himself.

In 1832 Christison resigned his chair of medical jurisprudence, and was appointed to that of materia medica and therapeutics, which he held till 1877. He joined with this a professorship of clinical medicine, which he resigned in 1855. His fame as a medical witness, and his investigations on Bright's disease and on fevers, brought him much practice, and he was president of the Edinburgh College of Physicians in 1839 and in 1848. In the latter year he was appointed physician in ordinary to the queen in Scotland. From 1868 to 1873 he was president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; in 1875 he was president of the British Medical Association. He declined the presidency of the British Association in 1876. In 1871 he received a baronetcy on Mr. Gladstone's recommendation. A host of British and foreign honorary distinctions were conferred on him.

Christison took an active part in general university affairs and in those of the medical faculty, of which he was for some years dean, afterwards becoming a member of the university court (1859–77 and 1879–81), and a crown representative in the general medical council (1858–77). He was a forcible public speaker, with a clear mellow bass voice, his language terse, unaffected, and precise. In 1872, on completing the fiftieth year's tenure of a professorship, he was specially honoured by a banquet and the honorary LL.D. of his own university. In 1877 he resigned his professorship, but lived in considerable vigour for some years, dying on 23 Jan. 1882 in his eighty-fifth year. His wife, a Miss Brown, whom he had married in 1827, died in 1849, leaving three sons. Although somewhat dogmatic and positive in expressing his opinions, Christison was at bottom most genial and warm-hearted. He was an elder in the Scotch church, liberal in his religious views, but a tory in politics. Sir Henry Acland, in a letter to his son (Life, vol. ii.), speaks of him as ‘a man of indomitable courage in both parts of his nature, mental and physical, and equally endowed in both,’ and of ‘his humorous appreciation of character, the result of his wide interest in men and things, combined with hatred of all pettiness and meanness.’ In person Christison was tall and athletic, and his appearance evidenced great determination of character. Up to old age he maintained a remarkable vigour of constitution, enabling him not only to overcome repeated attacks of fever caught in his practice, but to walk, run, and climb better than any man of his time in Edinburgh. He would race up Arthur's Seat from the head of Hunter's Bog in less than five minutes. In 1861 he became captain of the university rifle volunteers, retaining that post till 1877, when he was eighty years old. In 1875 he twice ascended Ben Voirlich, a climb of 2,900 feet; in his eighty-fourth year he climbed a hill of 1,200 feet.

Besides his work on poisons Christison published a book on ‘Granular Degeneration of the Kidneys,’ 1839, and a ‘Commentary on the Pharmacopœias of Great Britain,’ 1842. A large number of his papers on chemistry, medical jurisprudence, materia medica, medicine, botany, &c., are enumerated in his ‘Life,’ vol. ii. They were chiefly contributed to the Edinburgh medical journals and the ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.’ He wrote in Tweedie's ‘Library of Medicine’ several chapters on fever (vol. i.), and on diseases of the kidney (vol. iv.). His papers on the measurement and age of trees, written in later life, were of much interest (Trans. Bot. Soc., Edinburgh, 1878–81).  CHRISTMAS, GERARD, or, as he signs himself (d. 1634), enjoyed a high reputation as a carver and statuary in the reign of James I. His origin is uncertain, but there would appear to be a connection between him and a family of the same name at Colchester. According to Vertue he designed Aldersgate, and carved on the northern side of it an equestrian figure of James I in bas-relief. Vertue interprets the letters C Æ, carved in a frieze on the richly ornamented portal of Northumberland House, as denoting that Christmas was the architect or carver of the front of the house. This opinion is followed by Walpole and Pennant, and it is not improbable, since the house was built by Bemara Jansen during Christmas's lifetime. He seems to have been an ingenious and versatile artist, and designed and executed the artificial figures and other properties for many of the pageants which attended the entry of a new lord mayor of 