Born 28 February 1862, the second son of W J Collins, MD, of King's College, Aberdeen, who practised at 1 Albert Terrace, Regent's Park, NW and his wife, Mary Anne Francisca, eldest daughter of Edward Treacher, a descendant of the Huguenot family of Garnault; his elder brother was Sir William Job Collins, FRCS, whose distinguished career is described below. Treacher Collins was educated at University College School, then in Gower Street, and at the Middlesex Hospital. From 1884 to 1887 he was house surgeon at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields; was pathologist and curator of the museum there 1887-94; was elected surgeon in 1895 in succession to John Couper, FRCS, and consulting surgeon on his retirement in 1922. He was for some years secretary of the medical board of the hospital and took a great part in the removal of the charity from Moorfields to a new site in the City Road. He was secretary of the Ophthalmological Society 1898-1901, vice-president in 1905, was awarded the Nettleship medal in 1917, and became president in the same year. During this year, 1917, he was instrumental in founding the Council of British Ophthalmologists, of which he was president in succession to J B Lawford, FRCS. He delivered the Bowman lecture in 1921, taking as his subject "Changes in the visual organs correlated with the adoption of arboreal life and the assumption of the erect posture", a masterly, comprehensive, and very interesting survey of the whole subject. Collins was the official representative of the British government at the American Ophthalmological Congress in 1922, and in 1925 he was elected for the second time president of the Ophthalmological Society on the occasion of a convention of English-speaking ophthalmologists which met in London with the object of re-establishing the international congresses of ophthalmic surgeons which had been interrupted by the European war. In 1927, after a meeting at Scheveningen under the presidency of Professor van der Hoeve, an international council of ophthalmologists was formed with Collins as the first president. He thus took his place beside Sir William Bowman, von Graefe, Donders, and Ernst Fuchs as a leader in ophthalmology. In 1931 he was given the Mackenzie medal and took "The physiology of weeping" as the subject of his address. He married in 1894 Hetty Emily, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Jasper Herrick of Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. The honeymoon was spent in a journey to Ispahan, where he had been summoned to treat the eyes of the Shah's eldest son. He was rewarded with the Order of the Lion and Sun, wrote *In the kingdom of the Shah*, and became lastingly interested in Persian art, more especially in the carpets and faience. He died 13 December 1932, survived by his widow, by a son, Leslie Herrick Collins who had been called to the bar, and by a daughter, Christabel. Treacher Collins died 10 April 1949. As a young man Treacher Collins was a rugby footballer who played for the Middlesex Hospital; in later life he was a follower of the Queen's buckhounds. He was of medium height, clean shaven, courteous, and pleasant address. He was popular alike with students and patients, and was a sound teacher, a skilful operator, a loyal colleague, and a faithful friend. He did much to advance the science of ophthalmology by long and patient work both on naked-eye and microscopical preparations while he was curator of the museum and pathologist at Moorfields. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was Erasmus Wilson lecturer in 1900. He was ophthalmic surgeon to Charing Cross Hospital and to the Belgrave Hospital for Children, visiting ophthalmic surgeon to the Metropolitan Asylums Board ophthalmia schools at Swanley, Kent, consulting surgeon to the Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital and to the Oxford Eye Hospital, lecturer on ophthalmology at Charing Cross Hospital, at the London School of Tropical Medicine, and at the Oxford University Postgraduate School of Ophthalmology. He left £500 to the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital for benevolent purposes, and £500 to the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom. Publications:- *Researches into the anatomy and pathology of the eye*. London, 1896. *History and traditions of the Moorfields Eye Hospital*. London, 1929. *Arboreal life and the evolution of the human eye*. Philadelphia, 1922. *Pathology and bacteriology of the eye*. London, 1911; 2nd edition, 1925. *In the kingdom of the Shah*. London, 1896.