376 Proceedings of the Eoyal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
Sir James Ormiston Affleck. By Dr Alexander James. 
(Kead January 8, 1923.) 
To those of us medicals who have lived long enough in Edinburgh, and 
who, during our life’s span have had the privilege and good fortune 
to acquire the intimacy and friendship of Sir James Affleck, his loss 
must appear little short of irreplaceable, for the simple reason that 
men of the type of which he was such a unique example are now no 
longer being bred. 
As a physician, Affleck was self-made, in the truest and in the highest 
sense of the word. In the truest, because the position which he attained, 
the esteem in which he was held, and the honours which were accorded to 
him, were gained, not only by his own unaided industry and effort, but by 
industry and effort in the performance of which all ideas of future 
recompense or reward were as completely absent from his mind as is 
humanly possible. In the highest sense of the word, because esteem, 
honour, and position, as they severally all came to his lot, made absolutely 
no difference to him. To all who knew him, Affleck was the same simple, 
upright, kind, and self-sacrificing man in the second half of his life as he 
had been in the first. 
Born in Edinburgh in 1840, and having made up his mind early to 
become a doctor, Affleck qualified in 1867, taking then the M.B.,C.M. at 
the University, and the Licence at the Royal College of Surgeons, 
Edinburgh. He was thus later than most of his fellows in entering the 
profession, but this was simply because he had first to earn for himself the 
means required to carry him through the curriculum. For the same 
reason, after qualifying, he settled down at once to general practice in the 
Stockbridge district of the city, and there he worked conscientiously and 
untiringly for the first ten or twelve years of his medical life. From the 
beginning, however, it was evident that he was destined for more 
responsible work than that of general practice, for, combining evening 
study with his daily toil, he wrote his thesis on ‘‘Functional Disorders of 
the Heart,” and took the M.D. degree in 1869. About the same time he 
obtained the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, and, 
having thus qualified himself for the post of a dispensary physician, he 
obtained this, and indeed, for some years, combined with it the duties of 
public vaccinator at the New Town Dispensary. 
But in these early days of his medical life a piece of real and deserved 
