1 2 Transactions. 



original position. Should Her Gra'cious Majesty Queen Victoria 

 ever come to this part of the country, as it was lately expected she 

 would do, she might, he thought, be asked, with perfect propriety, 

 to visit the house built by a far-away forbear in a remote age, 

 and in which lies interred the dust of one of her royal progenitors. 

 With the exception of the Abbeys of Holyrood, Melrose, and 

 Dunfermline, there is no monastic house in Scotland that Mr 

 M'Dowall knew of with which there is intertwined so many dis- 

 tinguished family ties as Lincluden. A rare piece of architec- 

 ture, it is also full of historic suggestiveness, and to its ruined 

 mural crown a bi'ight poetical halo has been given by the genius 

 of Burns. All the more grateful should we be, therefore, that 

 the decay of Uchtred's Abbey has been arrested, and many of its 

 long-hidden features brought to light by the present liberal repre- 

 sentative of a renowned Nithsdale and Galloway family — Captain 

 Maxwell of Terregles. 



The Chairman, in moving a vote of thanks to Mr M'Dowall, 

 said the paper just read was really so very important in itself 

 that it ought not to be confined to the ordinary publications of 

 the Society ; and he suggested to the excursion committee that 

 they should arrange during the summer months for a visit to 

 Lincluden Abbey, and that Mr M'Dowall and Mr Barbour 

 should be asked to accompany the excursion, and give them the 

 benefit of their knowledge regarding tlie history and architecture 

 of the venerable pile. 



II. Zymotic Diseases, their Caiise and Cure. By Mr J. 

 Wilson, V.P. (Abstract). 

 After noticing the various diseases which belong to the 

 zymotic class, Mr Wilson said that until a few years ago 

 it was the general opinion that they were caused and 

 pi'opagated by decaying organic matter, which was everywhere 

 present, and especially in the fall of the year. Now it was 

 established beyond question that such was not the case, but that 

 these diseases were due to microscopic organisms having obtained 

 an entrance into the system, and there produced the disturbances 

 wliich characterised the different diseases. He next traced the 

 history of the " Germ Theory," from Schwann's discovery of the 

 yeast ferment in 1836 to the present time, and briefly referred to 

 the investigations of Pasteur, Tyndall, Lyster, Budd, Miquel, 

 Cohn, and Koch, which led to its adoption. 



