306 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
He was for many years Physician to the Northampton Infirmary, 
to which he was elected in 1820. He wrote some papers for Forbes’s 
Cyclopaedia of Medicine, and he contributed an article on Fever to 
the “ Edinburgh Eeview.” He also wrote on the Contagion of the 
Plague and on the Quarantine Laws. He reviewed “ Modern 
Scepticism,” “ Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk,” Mrs Brunton’s 
“ Emmeline.” He wrote Lectures on Civilisation, on the Wisdom 
of Grod, and on the Living Principle in Plants, Animals, and Man. 
He was an F.E.S., and joined the Eoyal Society of Edinburgh in 
1836. He was Vice-president of the British Medical Association 
at the time of his death, and at the meeting of the Association at 
Northampton in 1844, he was chosen President. He made a large 
fortune by practice. He leaves one son, who is a clergyman of the 
Church of England. 
Dr Gteorge Smyttan was born at Dunkeld on 17th June 1789. 
He received his early education at the grammar-school of that 
place, and studied at the universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh. 
He took his diploma as surgeon at Edinburgh in 1808, and his 
degree of M.D. at Aberdeen, when home from India on furlough. 
In 1808 he went out to Bombay as surgeon in the service of the 
H.E.I.C., and, including a year or so of furlough, remained in 
India thirty years, by which time he had risen to the head of the 
Medical Board. He came home in 1839, bearing with him the 
affection and esteem of a large circle of friends and associates, and 
the gratitude of missionaries and native converts, affecting testi- 
monies of which have been received since his death. He was 
spared to see twenty-five years in his own country after his return, 
sixteen of which were spent in zealous activity, promoting many 
a Christian enterprise, the remaining nine in the more difficult ser- 
vice of patient submission under bodily weakness and inaction, the 
effects of a paralytic seizure in September 1854. At the disruption 
of the Church of Scotland, he warmly espoused the cause of the 
Free Church, and to it was thenceforth devoted a large share of 
his energies and his substance. In all its schemes he took a lively 
interest, especially in its Indian Missions. But his philanthropy 
was far from being confined to denominational objects. Most of 
the benevolent efforts of the day shared his liberality. He was a 
