340 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
be one of the medical officers of the blew Town Dispensary. There 
his natural energy found an ample field for its exercise, and here he 
found, as many of his fellow practitioners can testify that they have 
done, the value to them of being thrown on their own resources, and 
having to apply on their own responsibility those clinical instruc- 
tions which they had acquired under their teachers in the Royal 
Infirmary. Andrew Wood laboured hard among the poor, and soon 
acquired that self-reliance and decidedness as a practitioner which 
characterised him in after life, and which made him to be trusted 
and valued in the large practice which he enjoyed, partly as an in- 
heritance but chiefly from his own professional worthiness. He held 
several important professional appointments, such as the surgeoncy 
of Heriot’s Hospital and of the Merchant Maiden and Trades Maiden 
Hospitals, and the Inspectorship of Anatomy for Scotland. 
His most conspicuous public position was that of a member of 
the General Medical Council. His hereditary as well as personal 
attachment to the College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, and the active 
share which he had taken in all its work, alike as a fellow, as 
president, and as an examiner, pointed him out as the fitting repre- 
sentative of that body in the General Council, and the College 
neither sought nor needed any other representative so long as he 
lived. He was soon recognised as an important and useful member 
of the Council, the best proof of which was his selection as the 
Scottish member of its Executive Committee. This entailed upon 
him much work, and frequent visits to London. To most people 
these last would have been a trial and discouragement, but his 
energetic nature knew no such impediments. He would make a 
night journey up, have a day’s business in the metropolis, and come 
back next night by the express, reappearing as usual in his pro- 
fessional rounds in the forenoon of the second day, apparently as 
fresh as if he had enjoyed two successive nights of undisturbed 
repose. It was these rapid movements of his which gained for him 
from his friends, both here and in London, the sobriquet of the 
“ Elying Scotsman.” 
Andrew Wood through his whole life had a keen enjoyment of the 
classics both ancient and modern, his favourite languages being Latin 
and German, and his love for them led him to write and publish 
translations from Horace and also from Lessing and Schiller. He 
