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Of his early years little is known, except that he is said tohave been a fair, delicate child, gentle and loving, full of gene-rous impulse, and, as a boy at school, of great activity, fear-lessness, and courage. At fourteen years of age he was sentto sea, having been removed from school just when he was be-ginning to appreciate instruction. During the next sevenyears, when he most needed the counsel and guidance of afather, he seems to have been unsettled as to the direction ofhis future course. Several occupations were suggested, tried,and given up in succession. Beginning as a sailor, he endeclhis minority as clerk in a mercantile office. A short time after-wards the merchant failed; and the year 1803 found youngAyre in his twenty-second year, without any business or pro- fession in view, but with his little patrimony at his own dis-posal. This was the turning point in his life. The choice layentirely with himself; and he decided on the study of medi-cine. With the sanguine confidence which never forsook him,he determined to invest, if need be, the whole of his littlecapital in his medical education. He had no fears for thefuture if this could be successfully completed.After a few months of preparation with a medical friend, we

find him spending the session of 1803-4 as a student underCline and Astley Cooper at Guy’s, and Haighton at St. Tho-mas’s Hospitals. In the autumn of 1804 he went to Edin-

burgh, and continued his medical studies under the Monros,Gregory, Hope, Home, Rutherford, Duncan, and Barclay.We have heard it remarked by their contemporaries that heand the late Dr. Armstrong were close friends, and almost in-separable companions, during their college course. Both gra-duated in 1807. The following year Dr. Ayre settled in Hull,where, shortly after, he was elected, as colleague with hisfriend, the late Dr. Alderson, physician to the Hull GeneralHospital, and was appointed also to several other public insti-tutions.In 1824 he removed to London, rejoining his friend Arm-

strong, and continued there, with a fairly successful and ex-tending practice, till, his health failing, consequent upon asevere injury to the head, he was compelled at first to refrainfrom work for more than a twelvemonth, and ultimately toleave London altogether. He returned to Hull in 1831, where hewas for many years an alderman in the town, and chairman ofthe Sanitary Committee of the Board of Health; and after hislabours in the cholera districts in 1849, the governor and guar-dians of the Incorporation of the Poor presented him with apurse of one hundred guineas, as an acknowledgment of theirsense of the value of his services. Within a few weeks of hisdeath, he was gratified by the intelligence that, on the 2nd ofNovember last, he had been elected to a fellowship of theCollege of Physicians.

Dr. Ayre is well known as a medical writer. His first pub-lication was one on " The Disorders of the Liver," publishedin 1818; and his next "A Treatise on Dropsy," published in1826. Both these works passed through several editions, andboth have been translated into German. Their highest praiseis the remark lately made, that many of the views of pathologyand treatment, then advocated as new, are those which at thepresent day generally, if not universally prevail.Of late years Dr. Ayre had become still better known to the

public from his labours in the treatment of Asiatic cholera. Itwas towards the close of 1831 that he was sent with Dr. Long-staff as a deputation to Sunderland and Newcastle to witnesscases of cholera, and report upon the disease, which had thenfor the first time appeared in England. So early as 1818, hehad indicated what he thought ought to be the treatment of akindred disease, and during this visit to the north he success-fully applied his theory to the treatment of a case entrusted tohis care by Dr. Clanny, and so introduced the practice withwhich his name has since been associated. In 1832, when thecholera visited Hull, Dr. Ayre was at work night and dayamongst the poor in the cholera districts, and had the gratifi-cation of finding that the success of his plan of treatment ex-ceeded even his most sanguine expectations. In the followingyear he published a work upon the subject, and the columns ofTHE LANCET contain many interesting and valuable communi-cations from his pen, recording the results of his experience.In 1849, on the outbreak of the cholera at Hamburgh, he

immediately went thither, and spent some time in inspectingthe hospitals, and observing the results of the various methodsof treatment there in use, and returned to Hull fully confirmedin his former views, both as to the mode of treatment and thenon-infectious character of the disease; on which last point, in1832, he stood almost alone.The last treatise he wrote was a memoir read before the French

Imperial Academy of Sciences in 1857, and sent in with up-

wards of 150 others, in competition for the legacy left by M.Breant for him who should discover an efficient means for thecure of cholera. The members of the Academy selected Dr.Ayre’s paper as that which seemed best to fulfil the conditionslaid down by the testator ; but they declined to award theprize till a yet larger eiiseinble of facts should be adduced inproof of his treatment being a specific. This memoir, with thereport of the Academy thereon, was published in June last byMr. Churchill.

In Dr. Ayre, the profession has lost one of the most activeand energetic of its older members. Naturally of quick per-ception and retentive memory, ardent in the pursuit of know-ledge, with an acquired habit of indefatigable industry, withevery leisure moment devoted to reading, it is not surprisingthat his mind became enriched by a vast store of information,gathered, as it was, not only from the literature of his owncountry, but from that of France, Italy, and Spain, with thelanguages of which he had early made himself familiar. Hewas of retiring habits, and though he wrote much, yet whenhe wrote, it was not because he wanted to say something, butbecause he had something to say. In setting forth his views,he was apt sometimes, perhaps, to rely too much on his ownconviction of their truth, and to disregard the possible pre-judices of his readers. His mode of treating cholera had provedsuccessful in his own hands and in those of many of his friends.His great desire was, that others who confessed themselves ata loss, and without confidence in any plan, would fairly andfaithfully give his plan a trial, and then publicly record theresult. " Try it faithfully and perseveringly," he would say," or not at all. At any rate, don’t make me responsible forthe result of the partial or imperfect trial."He died of disease of the bladder, which seems to have been

coming on for some few years, causing great suffering, whichoften, during the last six months, amounted to almost in-tolerable agony. His characteristic energy and love of studyremained with him till within a few days of his death. Duringthe intervals of ease, his mind was occupiecl with the highestof all subjects. His favourite work was Bishop Butler’s

"Analogy," which he esteemed as taking the highest rankamongst uninspired compositions, and he never wearied ofhearing it read to him.His sufferings increased in intensity till his frame sank from.

exhaustion; and though they failed to wring from him a murmur,yet they made him welcome death, because he looked beyondit. It came on the 15th inst.So closed a useful, honourable, and laborious life, " leaving

footprints on the sands of time."

MEDICAL DIARY OF THE WEEK.

MONDAY, FEB. 6......

TUESDAY, FEB. 7 ...

WEDNESDAY, FEB. S

THURSDAY, FEB. 9

FRIDAY, FEB. 10.....

SATURDAY, FEB. 11

’ROYAL FREE HOSPITAL.-Operations, 2 P.M.METROPOLITAN FREB HOSPITAL. - Operations,

2 P.u.EPIDEMIOLOGICAL SOCIETY.-8 P.M. Dr. R. F.

Foote, "On Quarantine in the East."ODONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.-8 P.M.MEDICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.-8i P.M. ClinicalDiscussion.rGUY’S HOSPITAL.-Operations. 1 ½ P.M.WESTMINSTER HOSPITAL.-Operations, 2 P.M.ROYAL INSTITUTION. - 3 P.M. Prof. Ocven, " On

Fossil Reptiles."lP ATROLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.-8 P.M.(MIDDLESEX HOSPITAL.-Operations, 1 P.M.I ST. VIARY’S HOSPITAL,-OpeYaflOitF, 1 P,bS.

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE HOSPITAL. - Operations,2 P.M.’I ROYAL ORTHOPÆDIC HOSPITAL. - Operations, 2

P.M.I NORTH LONDON MEDICAL SOCIETY. - 8 P.M.Annual Meeting and Election of Officers.rST. GEORGE’S HOSPITAL.-Operations, 1 P.M.CENTRAL LONDON OPHTHALMIC HOSPITAL.

Operations, 1 P.M.LONDON HOSPITAL.-Operations, 1 ½ P.M.’ GBEAT NORTHERN HOSPITAL, KING’S CROSS.’’ Operations, 2, P.M.I ROYAL INSTIT1:TION. - 3 P.M. Prof. Tyndall,L " ON Light." ’WESTMINSTER OPHTHALMIC HOSPITAL. - Opera-

tions, 1 ½ P.M.ROYAL INSTITUTION.-8 P.M. Prof. T. H. Huxley,," Un Species and Races, and their Orig-in."ST. THOMAS’S HOSPITAL.-Operations, 1 P.M.ST. DAPTHOLOMEW’s HOSPITAL.-Operations, 1 ½

P.M.KING’S COLLEGE HOSPITAL.-Operations, 1½ P.M.I CBARiNGr-cRoss HOSPITAL.—Operations, 2 P.M.ROYAL JxsTiTCTioN. - 3 P.M. Dr. Lankester,i "’.’n the Relations of the Animal Kingdom to-L the Industry of Man."