110 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF ABERDEEN AND DISTRICT 
Low, GrorcE.—He was born in 1747, near Brechin, and in the 
Orkneys he devoted most of his life to observation and investigation of 
the natural history of the Northern Isles. He was with Sir Joseph Banks 
when Banks visited the Orkneys in 1772, and was also in correspondence 
with Thomas Pennant, whose correspondence with Gilbert White at the 
time was to result in the Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne. 
MacGittivray, Prof. WiLL1aM.—MacGillivray has taken his place as 
distinctively the greatest naturalist that the North of Scotland has produced. 
He graduated at King’s College, M.A., in 1815, and made some effort 
afterwards to take up medicine, but abandoned it for natural science. 
He became, in 1831, the Servitor of the Museum of the Royal College of 
Surgeons, Edinburgh, but resigned this post in 1841, when to his great 
happiness he was appointed to the chair of Natural History in Marischal 
College and University. MacGillivray, as a Professor, embarked on 
many undertakings besides the delivery of his lectures—in making 
collections for the use of his students, in descriptive works on natural 
history and, greatest of all, his History of British Birds. His last completed 
work before his death in 1852 was The Natural History of Deeside, the 
manuscript of which was printed by command of Queen Victoria and 
was presented by the Prince Consort to individual recipients. In 
November 1900 a brass memorial tablet was unveiled in the Natural 
History Classroom, Marischal College, and was delivered to the custody 
of Prof. (afterwards Sir) J. Arthur ‘Thomson, MacGillivray’s successor in 
the chair of Natural History. Another form of commemoration was the 
provision of a granite monument of artistic design placed at MacGillivray’s 
grave in New Calton Burying Ground, Edinburgh. 
Morrison, Ropert.—This early botanist was born in Aberdeen, 1620, 
and graduated M.A. and Ph.D., 1638. He took the degree of M.D. at 
Angers. While in France he was introduced to Charles II, and at the 
Restoration accompanied the King to England, and was made King’s 
Physician, King’s Botanist and Superintendent of the Royal Gardens. 
MEDICINE. 
ABERCROMBIE, JOHN.—Dr. Abercrombie was a son of the minister of 
the East Church in Aberdeen, born 1780. He took his medical course 
at Edinburgh University, and settled down there as a practising physician. 
He was first physician to the King, George III, in Scotland, a dignity 
always conferred on the most distinguished doctor of his time in Scotland. 
Among his distinguished patients was Sir Walter Scott, whom he advised 
to stop writing if he did not wish to kill himself. In 1835 he was elected 
Rector—usually styled Lord Rector—of Marischal College and University, 
and again in 1836 and 1837. 
ARBUTHNOT, JOHN.—It is amusing to think that the designation ‘ John 
Bull,’ as typical of the Englishman, is due to the humour of an Aberdonian. 
Dr. John Arbuthnot, a graduate in Arts of Marischal College and Univer- 
sity, 1681, and the first recorded M.D. of St. Andrews, 1696, published, 
in 1712, the first part of his celebrated satire, The History of fohn Bull, 
and from that day the symbolic expression, as applied to an Englishman, 
