politics, so much so
that her inexperience caused much anxiety in November 1885, when she was
called upon to take the arduous duties of regent. During the long
minority of the posthumous son of Alphonso XII., afterwards King
Alphonso XIII., the Austrian queen-regent acted in a way that obliged
even the adversaries of the throne and the dynasty to respect the mother
and the woman. The people of Spain, and the ever-restless civil and
military politicians, found that the gloved hand of their constitutional
ruler was that of a strong-minded and tenacious regent, who often
asserted herself in a way that surprised them much, but always, somehow,
enforced obedience and respect. More could not be expected by a foreign
ruler from a nation little prone to waste attachment or demonstrative
loyalty upon anybody not Castilian born and bred.

CHRISTISON, SIR ROBERT, Bart. (1797-1882), Scottish toxicologist and
physician, was born in Edinburgh on the 18th of July 1797. After
graduating at the university of that city in 1819, he spent a short time
in London, studying under John Abernethy and Sir William Lawrence, and
in Paris, where he learnt analytical chemistry from P.J. Robiquet and
toxicology from M.J.B. Orfila. In 1822 he returned to Edinburgh as
professor of medical jurisprudence, and set to work to organize the
study of his subject on a sound basis. On poisons in particular he
speedily became a high authority; his well-known treatise on them was
published in 1829, and in the course of his inquiries he did not
hesitate to try such daring experiments on himself as taking large doses
of Calabar bean. His attainments in medical jurisprudence and toxicology
procured him the appointment, in 1829, of medical officer to the crown
in Scotland, and from that time till 1866 he was called as a witness in
many celebrated criminal cases. In 1832 he gave up the chair of medical
jurisprudence and accepted that of medicine and therapeutics, which he
held till 1877; at the same time he became professor of clinical
medicine, and continued in that capacity till 1855. His fame as a
toxicologist and medical jurist, together with his work on the pathology
of the kidneys and on fevers, secured him a large private practice, and
he succeeded to a fair share of the honours that commonly attend the
successful physician, being appointed physician to Queen Victoria in
1848 and receiving a baronetcy in 1871. Among the books which he
published were a tre