EAMEE
EAMSAY
professor of contemporary history at Paris
University. He was elected to the Senate
in 1895, and was again Minister of Public
Instruction from 1896 to 1898. He was a
member of the Academy of Moral and
Political Sciences and of the Institut.
Eambaud was one of the most distin
guished historians of France in his time.
His works on Eussia were indispensable,
and he wrote an Histoire de la civilisation
frangaise (2 vols., 1887) and other im
portant works. In conjunction with
Lavisse, he edited the great French Histoire
generale du iv siecle a nos jours (12 vols.,
1892-1900), which was written by the
ablest historical students of the time.
Like his friend Jules Ferry, he was a
thorough Eationalist, and his work as
Minister was part of the secularization of
the schools of France. D. Nov. 10, 1905.
RAMEE, Marie Louise de la, novelist ("Ouida"). B. Jan. 1, 1839. Ed. by father, a Frenchman who gave lessons at Bury St. Edmunds. The family name was Eame, and was changed by her to de la Eamee. She moved to London in 1859, and Harrison Ains worth, of whom she became a friend, encouraged her to write fiction. She had written a story, Idalia, in 1855. After 1860 she lived much in Italy, and in 1874 she settled permanently in Florence. The popularity of her novels more than forty in number waned after 1890, and " Ouida " (a child s lisping pro nunciation of Louisa, which she adopted as pen-name) had to rely partly on a Civil List Pension. She was an ardent humani tarian and anti-vivisectionist, and a dis dainful opponent of Christianity. In her Views and Opinions (1895) she has a chapter entitled " The Failure of Chris tianity." Its radical defect is that it tried to win the world by "a bribe," and it has become " a nullity." " Of all powerless things on earth," she says, " Christianity is the most powerless " (p. 114). She spares neither Catholic nor Protestant, and is caustic about the " cant " to which they give birth. D. Jan. 25, 1908.
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RAMON Y CAJAL, Professor Santiago,
M.D., Spanish histologist. B. May 1, 1852. Ed. Saragossa University. In 1881 he was appointed professor of anatomy at Valencia University, in 1886 professor of histology at Barcelona, and in 1892 pro fessor of histology at Madrid. His work in histology (Manual de histologia normal y tecnica micrografica, 1889 ; Elementos de histologia normal, 1895 ; etc.) is of the first importance, and he shared the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1906. Eamon y Cajal had devoted his research particularly to the brain and nervous system, and has done, perhaps, more than any to destroy the illusion of an immaterial mind. In 1900 the International Medical Congress awarded him its highest prize ; and he has the Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella and Alfonso XII, and is a member of the Academy of Medicine and Academy of Science. He is an outspoken Eationalist, and wrote a manual for F. Ferrer s Modern School.
RAMSAY, Sir William, K.C.B., F.E.S., Ph.D., D.Sc., LL.D., M.D., chemist. B. Oct. 2, 1852. Ed. Glasgow Academy, and Glasgow, Heidelberg, and Tubingen Uni versities. Eamsay graduated in philosophy at Tubingen, and his orthodox beliefs were undermined in that period. In 1872 he was appointed assistant in the Young Laboratory of Technical Chemists at Glasgow, and two years later he was a Tutorial Assistant in Glasgow University. He became professor of chemistry at Bristol University College in 1880, and Principal of the College in 1881. In 1887 he obtained the chair of chemistry at London University College, and held it until he retired in 1912. His world- famous research in chemistry began early. In 1894 he, in collaboration with Lord Eayleigh, isolated argon, and in the follow ing year he discovered terrestrial helium. In 1898 he announced neon, krypton, and xenon, and in 1905 radio-thorium. Eamsay was, in fact, one of the most brilliant and most honoured inorganic chemists of 634
