70 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. IT. 



Along with botany there had been pleasantly associated this 

 summer the pursuit of chemistry, under Professor Christison. 

 On June 2d, he writes to Miss Mackay, Glasgow, " I am now 

 with Christison, labouring away under his superintendence at 

 all sorts of chemical operations, analysis, synthesis, etc. etc. I 

 have got a corner to myself, and the whole laboratory, with all 

 its contents, at my disposal, and depend on it I'll make good use 

 of them. I have had many a project, which the limited and 

 fragile nature of my chemical apparatus, consisting of a few 

 tubes and vials, prevented me ever putting to the test of experi- 

 ment, but now I shall stick at nothing, and be sure I'll always 

 be busy with something of my own." His small sleeping 

 apartment at home was fitted up in every available corner with 

 bottles, flasks, retorts, and such paraphernalia. His younger sister 

 Jessie was his assistant, and had the vials handed over to her 

 for washing. She was led to form an alarming opinion of Dr. 

 Christison, from being so frequently told, on presenting what 

 seemed to her a vial made clean and pure by much trouble, 

 " Ah ! if we had offered that to Dr. Christison !" But notwith- 

 standing the difficulties of her post, the child enjoyed much her 

 office, and did her best for the bottles. Some small portion of 

 his enthusiasm made her at least respect what was evidently so 

 important and interesting. In the fourth chapter of Professor 

 E. Forbes' ' Life/ already so frequently alluded to, the marvel 

 lous changes in pharmacy, of which the dawn now appeared, are 

 dilated on at length. Much of it possesses biographical interest, 

 and, for the sequence of our story, we shall again dip into it : 

 " As one of these [Professor Christison's] assistants, I speak from 

 personal experience to the profound impression of a mighty 

 change passing over medicine as an administratrix of substances, 

 which in one sentence are food, in another medicine, in another 

 poison, which my daily laboratory work made upon me ; and 

 together vdth a gifted fellow- student and fellow- chemist, the 

 late Samuel Brown, I often, as we watched a process, wondered 

 at the changes which ourselves had witnessed, and, with the 

 hopefulness and confidence of youth, echoed the prediction that 

 these were but the first-fruits of a far more wondrous harvest 

 which should yet be gathered. . . . The spirit of the alchemists 



