The son of Henry Compton Law, of Allington, by the daughter of the Rev John Taylor, Chaplain in Ordinary to Queen Caroline. He was first articled to S S Varcombe, of Castle Cary, and in 1867 became a student at Guy's Hospital, where his contemporaries were Golding-Bird, Jacobson, Mahomed, and Pye-Smith. Migrating to Edinburgh with a view to the degree, Law first worked in the wards of Sir T Grainger Stewart, and then in those of Lister (qv). Later he was Resident Physician in the Royal Infirmary for a year, first in Dr Haldane's wards and afterwards in those of Dr G W Balfour, the authority on cardiac pathology. After graduating MB in August, 1872, he was appointed Assistant Medical Officer at the Chorlton Hospital, Manchester, which was a large new building on the pavilion plan. He remained there till he obtained the MD, with commendation for his thesis on mitral stenosis. He was soon appointed House Physician at the Seamen's Hospital, Greenwich. After qualifying FRCS in 1875, Law became Resident Medical Officer at the Brompton Consumption Hospital. He grew somewhat anaemic, and was advised to go to St Leonards, whence he returned to London with re-established health in 1885. He was a believer in the value of the open-air treatment of phthisis, and followed the lines subsequently popularized as the 'Nordrach treatment'. Early in the eighties he published one such open-air case. While waiting for patients in London, Law acted as Clinical Assistant at the Soho Hospital for Women and the Hospital for Diseases of the Skin, Blackfriars. He was also Physician to the Home for Inebriate Women, North Finchley. He then went to the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, where he became an Intern. Returning to London he interested himself in ophthalmology, and for a year was Clinical Assistant at the Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital. Up to 1895 he lived at 9 Norfolk Crescent, Hyde Park, W, after which date he spent some years in the country. Law possessed much culture, and was a very careful and able physician. In 1902 he figured in a medical *cause célèbre*, sustaining an action for negligence in which £5000 were claimed from him - the suggestion being that his treatment of a case of asthma had conduced to the acquirement by the patient of a morphia habit. The jury stopped the case, giving Law a verdict with costs. The costs were not forthcoming, and Law suffered heavy financial loss. Dr R Paramore thereupon inaugurated a subscription for the purpose of reimbursing him, which, under the auspices of the Presidents of the two Colleges and the Master of the Apothecaries' Society, was supported by the profession to the amount of several hundred pounds. The loss of his only son, a promising Cambridge graduate of 25, left Law childless. He died at Bournemouth, after an operation for gall-stones, on September 6th, 1910, and was buried near his son at Ripley, Surrey, where he had lived. He was survived by his wife, a daughter of Mr Price, QC, Recorder of York. Publications: *The Effects of Alcohol on the Heart and Circulation*, 2nd ed, 1897. *Vittel as a Health Resort*, 1898. Translation (in conjunction with the author) of E Landolt's "Die Insufficienz des Convergenz-Vermögens." - *Ophthalmic Rev*, 1886, v, 185. Translation of Revilliod and Binet's *Texte explicatif des Planches montrant les Lésions viscérales produites par l'Alcoolisme*, 1894. *The Prevention of Consumption*, 1899. "Case of Chronic Bright's Disease (Mixed Form), with Remarks." - *Lancet*, 1874, ii, 546. "Sodium Nitrite in the Treatment of Epilepsy." - *Practitioner*, 1882, xxviii, 420. "Case of Phthisis Treated by the Open-air Method." - *Brit Med Jour*, 1899, i, 849.