46 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY 



containing picoline promised to be the most interesting. 

 Beside their derivatives already known, he prepared 

 compounds corresponding to the platinum-ammonium 

 compounds with which he had been already occupied. 



Experiments on the physiological action of some of 

 these bases induced him to attend the lectures of Pro- 

 fessor McKendrick, then recently appointed to the Chair 

 of Physiology. The results of their joint experiments 

 were published in the Journal of Physiology. The 

 synthesis of pyridine from acetylene and prussic acid 

 by passing them together through a heated tube was 

 accomplished by Ramsay for the first time in 1877. 

 About the same time, in association with J. J. Dobbie, 

 he examined the products of oxidation of quinine and 

 cinchonine. An interesting account of these researches 

 and of the relations thus begun and continued 

 through so many years between the two young men 

 has been given by Sir James Dobbie in a series 

 of recollections of which the following is an abstract. 

 He says : 



" I first met Ramsay in the summer of 1875, about a year after 

 his appointment as Assistant to Professor Ferguson in the 

 University of Glasgow. 



I had completed my course for the ordinary M.A. degree and 

 passed the usual examinations. I had also gone through the 

 chemistry course with Dr. Anderson and had begun to work 

 for honours in Natural Science and for the B.Sc. degree of Edin- 

 burgh University, there being then no science degree at Glasgow. 

 Ramsay was delighted to find anyone whose views went a little 

 beyond the routine that was followed by most of the students- 



