24 President's Address. 



garden, at Kockville, near Linlithgow (which was entirely 

 laid out hy himself), all kinds of trees, shrubs, and flowers 

 at all fitted to the situation, taking particular interest in 

 the importations from Japan. Whilst in his humility he 

 did not consider himself a botanist, yet he was so in the 

 truest sense of the word, for he continued an ardent and 

 devoted student of that science, and whenever any object 

 engaged his attention and regard — whether shrubs, flowers, 

 ferns, &c., he made a study of procuring books bearing on 

 the subject, and of visiting such nurseries or other places 

 as afforded him an opportunity of seeing specimens and of 

 obtaining them for himself, and this love of collecting 

 whatever was new and interesting to him, and enjoyment in 

 the results of his efforts continued in full vigour to the last. 

 His death occurred on the 3d of April 1879. 



Among our Eesident Fellows we also mourn the loss of 

 Dr James Gumming, a young physician of high promise, 

 whose sun has gone down at noon. He graduated as M.B. 

 and CM. in our "University in 1868, and became house 

 surgeon to Professor Lister in the Eoyal Infirmary. 

 Influenced no doubt by this position he was fired with 

 the zeal of his master, and chose as the subject of his thesis, 

 " An Enquiry into the Theory and Practice of Antiseptic 

 Surgery," for which he obtained a gold medal when he 

 took his degree of M.D. in 1871. The thesis is charac- 

 terised by learning and ability, and exhibits his powers of 

 original research. He availed himself of the advantages 

 which Berlin and Vienna afford by studying at these 

 cities. On returning home he was appointed one of the 

 medical staff of the New Town Dispensary, and shortly 

 afterwards he was elected to the office of extra physician 

 to the Sick Children's Hospital, and ultimately to that of 

 ordinary physician to that institution. He was a Fellow 

 of the Eoyal College of Physicians, and assisted his father 

 in an extensive practice. He communicated to the " Edin- 

 burgh Monthly Journal of Medical Science " a very in- 

 teresting and instructive article on the " Uterine Souffle 

 and the Foetal Heart," while his last production on "Alopecia 

 Areata," which appeared in the pages of the " Practitioner," 

 was a paper of great merit, and augured well for his future 



