XXXIV 
Proceedings of Royal Society of EdinhurgJi. 
Alexander Keiller, M.D., LL.D., F.E.C.P.E., F.E S.E. 
By T. A G. Balfour, M.D. 
(Read January 16, 1893.) 
Dr Alexander Keiller became a Fellow of this Society in 1866. 
He held a distinguished place as a physician, more especially in the 
gynaecological department of the profession, and was much and 
justly esteemed, respected, and loved by all his professional brethren. 
His extensive experience, gained from many important public 
appointments and from a large private practice, and the numerous, 
varied, and valuable contributions with which, as the result of these 
advantages, he enriched the literature of his profession, placed him 
among the very foremost of those who have extended the confines 
of practical medicine, and furnished to his fellow -workers a tried 
and solid foundation upon which they may confidently build in 
prosecuting their further researches. 
Dr Keiller was born at Arbroath on November 11th, 1811 — a 
date easily remembered, if we adopt the mnemonics which he has 
humorously supplied: “I was born,” he said, “at the 11th hour 
of the 11th day of the 11th month of the 11th year of this 
century.” 
His father, John Keiller (or Keelor, as it is written in the burgess 
ticket which he obtained at Aberbrothock in 1804, and which, 
through the kindness of a friend, is now before me), was a merchant 
in that town, but seems to have been originally from Dundee, 
as he is stated to have returned to Dundee from Arbroath in 
1814. 
Dr Keiller’s early education was, I believe, at the grammar 
school at Dundee ; and afterwards, with a view to prepare him more 
thoroughly for his preliminary medical studies, he was placed under 
the tuition of Mr James B. Lindsay, whose fame as an educationist 
was widely acknowledged over the northern counties of Scotland. 
At that time, on a house in Union Street, Dundee, you might have 
seen a signboard with the unpretentious inscription — J ames Lindsay, 
Teacher of Languages ; and within that house there lived a man in 
many respects truly remarkable — a kind of prodigy of learning. 
