ROYLEJohn Forbes (1800-1858), a distinguished botanist and teacher of materia medica. His reputation is especially founded upon the results of personal investigations in the Himalaya Mountains and in other parts of Hindustan. He was born in Cawnpore in 1800. His medical education was obtained in London, and on its completion he entered the service of the East India Company, and was sent to India in 1822 in the grade of assistant surgeon. In this service he devoted himself to studying in the field the botany and geology of the regions within his reach, and made large collections among the Himalaya Mountains. He also made special investigations of the medical properties of the plants of Hindustan and of the history of their uses among the native races. The results of these investigations appeared in 1837 in the form of a valuable work On the Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine. For nearly ten years he held the post of superintendent of the East India Company’s botanic garden in the Himalayas at Saharanpur. He returned to London on furlough in 1831, and in 1837 he was appointed to the professorship of materia medica in King’s College, London, a position which he held till 1856. From 1838 onwards he conducted a special department of correspondence, relating to vegetable products, at the East India House, and at the time of his death he had just completed there the formation and arrangement of an extensive and valuable museum of technical products from the East Indies. In 1851 he superintended the Indian department of the Great Exhibition. He died at Acton near London on 2d January 1858....