XII 



Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



spasm, and as possessing in certain intestinal conditions the value of a 

 cathartic. 



From this research there was a fixrther development. The symptoms- 

 produced by Calabar bean and the cause of their occurrence suggested the 

 probability that atropine, which antagonises the action of physostigmine on 

 the eye, would also show itself antidotal with regard to the more serious 

 effects which the former occasions. This anticipation proved fully justified by 

 the results, and much light is shed by the long series of experiments 

 on the relative antidotal efficiency of atropine when administered before 

 ( prophylactically), simultaneously with, or subsequently to the toxic Calabar 

 bean extract. This work, published just fifty years ago, is a model of its- 

 kind, of care in design, and precision in accomplishment. It was also in the 

 late " sixties " that Prof. Crum Brown and Dr. Eraser began collaboration in 

 an experimental enquiry into the connection between chemical constitution 

 and physiological action. Selecting certain alkaloids possessing well-defined 

 toxic actions, amongst which spasm is conspicuous, they introduced an ethylic 

 or methylic group into the molecule of these by substitution for hydrogen. 

 On submitting such salts to pharmacological tests, the observers established 

 the fact that whilst the toxicity of these was enhanced as contrasted with 

 that of the alkaloids individually from which they were derived, the condition 

 of spasm was no longer present, but in place a paralytic state attributable ta 

 a peripheral action on motor nerves. Confirmation with amplification of these 

 observations were subsequently obtained in the case of atropine and coniine, 

 of which the dimethylic iodide was found to be inferior in toxicity to the 

 monomethylic. 



The appointment of Dr. Fraser, in 1870, to an assistant physiciancy in the 

 Eoyal Infirmary of Edinburgh was the beginning of a prolonged connection 

 with that institution, as (exclusive of three years, during which he was acting 

 as Medical Officer of Health for Mid-Cheshire) his services, first as assistant 

 and subsequently as physician and one of the professors of clinical medicine, 

 extended over a period of forty years. 



When, in 1877, he was appointed to the Chair of Materia Medica, in 

 succession to Sir Robert Christison, Dr. Fraser was in his thirty-seventh 

 year. The post, with its high traditions, offered great opportunities to the 

 enthusiastic investigator and teacher ; he had, it is true, lectured " extra- 

 murally " on his chosen subject, but he had now to meet a much larger class, 

 to which he owed the duty of making the wide and exacting group of subjects 

 taught from the Chair of Materia Medica* not merely intelligible but 

 attractive. Prof. Fraser was not long in establishing his reputation as a 

 successful and inspiring lecturer ; clear, deliberate, and incisive in style, 

 methodical and thorough in handling fact or theory, he infused vitality into 

 what the medical student is too apt to* regard as the dry bones of pharmaco- 

 gnosy by his descriptions of the action upon tissues and organisms of which 



* The professor was responsible not only for the teaching of pharmacognosy, but also 

 of pharmacology, therapeutics, and pharmacy. 



