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ciety actuated by a really social spirit, must be more or less in the 

 minds of the Fellows, when we meet for the first time after the in- 

 terval of the summer vacation. The interval is not long, and yet it 

 has been sufficient to produce great changes in the managing por- 

 tion of the Society, by the removal from this world of several of those 

 who anted high scientific attainments with a deep interest and 

 careful attention to the ordinary business of the Society. The mem- 

 bers removed by death during the last year are Sir George Ballin- 

 gall, Professor Gray, Colonel Madden, Mr John Clerk Maxwell, 

 General Martin White, and Mr James Wilson. 



It might be thought invidious for the Society acting in its corpo- 

 rate capacity to single out among these some whose memory de- 

 served commemoration above that of others. But an individual can 

 speak of that only which he himself knows, and must be allowed to 

 speak in preference of those whom he knew, not merely by the re- 

 putation of their talents, but more closely in the intercourse of pro- 

 fessional or of social life. 



I mention then, in the first place, Sir George Ballingall, who 

 closed a life of much useful activity at the advanced age of seventy. 

 His scientific labours, so far as I am informed, were very much 

 limited to his profession ; his more important works, such as 

 his Lectures on " Military Surgery," " On the Construction of Hos- 

 pitals," " On the Diseases of India," were all intended to commu- 

 nicate to the younger members of the medical profession the results 

 of his own long and careful experience as an army surgeon and as a 

 medical officer in India ; and his more numerous occasional papers, 

 having all the same professional character and purpose, appeared, 

 not in our Transactions, but in the journals of Medical Science. 

 Throughout his long career in the army, in the University of Edin- 

 burgh, and in private practice, Sir George possessed the confidence 

 and esteem of all with whom he was connected, and this was due not 

 only to his professional knowledge and skill, but also to his upright 

 and gentlemanly deportment in private life. 



I have next to speak of one whose name and person at least have 

 been more under the notice of the younger Fellows of the Society, 

 I'rom the circumstance of his having very kindly and very effectively 

 undertaken the duties of General Secretary, when for a time we 

 were under great difficulty from the severe and protracted illness of 

 Professor Forbes. I should not have ventured upon any attempt to 



