OBITUARY                    [=AY 3. lsy
              __--__ ---______il
  of Lircrpool in 1901 and after holding resident posts a?
   Liverpool Royal Infirm.zry he was awarded the Ale=
  ander fellowship in pathology and worked at the Thorn
   son Yates laboratory.  Later he joined as an  es&
                                    lnv
  gator the Royal Commission on Tuberculosis at Star&d
  where his brother, the late A. Stanley Griffith, was alad
   working.  In 1910 GrilXth joined the staff of the Local
   Government Board under Dr. Arthur Eastwood and
  began vrork at Cardinal Nanning's old house in Carlisle
  Place, and like Scott he moved to Dudley House when t
                7
  Ministry of Health took over the service. Since th
  outbreak of this war he had been working for the Mini&$
  a.nd the Medical Research Council on investigating
  streptococci isolated from mar wounds and other sources.!
    Like his brother he was a recIuse, known to few.  Toi
  these, however, his quiet, kindly manner and%ls devotion'
  to his life job, made him a lovable personality.  Out&l&
  his work he found his pleasure in his winter `ski-ir.r3
  holiday in the Alps, in walks with his dog on the Sussex
   downs, and in the cott'nge he had built there.  He was &
   member of the honourablc society of Grav's Inn.
   For over thirty years of his working life, writes L. C.
   Fred Griffhh followed a single star. He believed that
  progress in the epidemiology of infectious diseases would
   come-and only come-with more precise knowledge
   about the micro-organisms responsible for those diseases..
   It was idle to speculate about the sources OF infection
  in tuberculosis or strept,ococcal infection while there were
   manifest differences among the strains of tuber&
  bacilli and of st.reptococci.  Better differentiation of the
  organisms must come first, and to t,hat task he devoted
  his life, content quiet'ly to amass observations year after5
  year in the sure hope that some pattern would gradually`
    emerge.  Some of us xvondrred-I certainly oft,en did-
  whether such complete preoccupation with this one
   aspect of the problrm wa,~ worth while.  But Grlfflth'
   wvas right, as evenm have
   proved.  His differentiation of
   the hntmolytic streptococci into
   types by the agglutination re-
   action, nnd t.1le.t of Mrs. Lauce-
   field into larger groups by the
  prccipitinrcaction, have ellabled
  workers all over the world to dig
   out the essentia.1 facts about the
   sources of infection in scarlet
   fever. pncrperal fever, epidemic
  sore-throat,. surgical sepsis and
   wound infectious.  These facts
  are providing t.he foundation
   for , far-reaching preventive
    measures.  Griffith knew well
  that the task was by no means
  completed but his work had
   carried it fart,her tha,n that, of
  any other single individual.
   h fine achievement, carried
  through pithout thought of
  person&l ambition or of gain. IIe
  also worked alone at the differcutintion of the meningc-'
  cocci and t,he pncumococci aud staphylococci, and hem
  two pieces of work stand out: that on t,he profound'
  biological changes induced in a, virulent. pneumococcus,
  by contact n-it,11 au immune serum, and that on the
  transformation of pneumococcal tvpes under certain;
   circumstances.  It was characteristic that, he hesitated
  longer tlxtu most workers would have done before pub-,'
  lishing thcrr observations. He alwnys took the line'
  " ~U&hty God is in no hurry-why should I be 2 " ,~,`a

FREDERICK GRIFFITH
  X.R. LPOOL, D.P.H.

Dr. F. Grifhtb, who was Scott's fellow at the SIink;try
and met his'death with him, was born at Hale in Cheshire
some sixty years ago.  He graduated from the University