378 Proceedings of the Eoyal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
Director from its foundation, and to the welfare of which he ministered 
with a lifelong devotion. He also acted as a member of the Board of 
Management of the Royal Infirmar^^ of the Royal Asylum for the Insane, 
and of the Sick Children’s Hospital. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal 
Society of Edinburgh in 1896 ; in 1905 he was President of the Medico- 
Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh ; in 1908 he received the Honorary 
Degree of LL.D. from the University; and in 1911 he was knighted by the 
King at Holyrood. 
As a consulting physician Affleck was pre-eminent alike as regards 
perception of the significant points in any case of disease and as regards 
direction towards, and resourcefulness in, treatment. For this he was 
undoubtedly largely indebted to the medical experience of his earlier years. 
In the practice of medicine, as in every other walk of life, the things that 
matter most must be got at by personal experience alone, and during the 
first ten or twelve years of his medical life, when he was daily and hourly 
meeting with diseases of all kinds — medical, surgical, and obstetric — and 
when, with his keen sympathy and intense conscientiousness he was, by 
study and thought, straining every nerve to discover how and when he 
could best treat them, he had built up on a solid foundation a truly solid 
framework of medical knowledge and insight. Affleck was one of those 
who well grasped the truth of the old saying, ‘‘There is no curing of 
diseases by art, without first knowing how they are being cured by Nature.” 
And so, in the plethora of new methods and processes for the diagnosis, 
prevention, and treatment of disease, which the last few decades have 
brought into notice, he was invariably recognised as the man who might 
be trusted to discern among them those which would stand the test of 
time and those which would not. 
As a teacher he was very highly appreciated ; he was lucid and clear in 
exposition, and the thoughtfulness which was evident in everything which 
he said or did brought out the best in the minds of the students who 
listened to him. He was a fluent writer, and during his long life contri- 
buted largely to the various medical journals. At the meetings of the 
Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh his frequent communications 
and demonstrations were always welcomed. 
Emphatically not a diner-out, and shunning society functions of all 
kinds, when he found himself in congenial surroundings Affleck showed 
himself a most interesting and well-informed conversationalist. All his 
life he read largely, and in the latter half of it he assiduously added to his 
intellectual and artistic endowments the fruits of Continental travel. 
Though not a performer, he was artistic and musical through and through. 
