209 
of Edinburgh, Session 1876 - 77 . 
interesting documents connected with its history are given ; the 
volume is entitled “Notes on the Early History of the Royal 
Scottish Academy.” In due time he became an Academician and 
a member of Council, and on the death of the late Sir John Watson 
Gordon he succeeded him as President of the Academy. Some 
time afterwards he received the honour of knighthood from the 
Queen. 
Endowed with a constitution robust and sound, Sir George Harvey 
was able up to an advanced period of life to pursue without serious 
interruption the work of his profession. As he approached his 
seventieth year, however, his health began to give way, and symp- 
toms of a serious kind soon showed themselves. In the spring of 
1874 his illness assumed so serious a form that his life was despaired 
of; and though he rallied so far as to be able to leave his room, 
take short drives, and receive his more intimate friends, it became 
increasingly manifest that his work was done, and that his earthly 
career must soon reach its close. Calmly, serenely, surrounded by 
loving friends, and tended with affectionate solicitude by those 
nearest and dearest to him, he for several months awaited his end. 
This came to him on the evening of the 22d of January 1876, 
when he peacefully breathed his last. 
Sir George Harvey became a Fellow of this Society in 1867. 
James Warburton Begbie was born at Edinburgh on the 19th of 
November 1826. He was the second son of Dr James Begbie, for 
many years well known and held in much repute as a consulting 
physician in this city. Destined to follow his father’s profession, 
young Begbie was carefully educated with that view. His profes- 
sional studies were prosecuted at the University and the Surgeons’ 
Hall, Edinburgh, and afterwards at several of the continental 
schools, including those of Paris, Vienna, and Italy; and he had 
all along, while pursuing his studies, the advantage of his father’s 
constant superintendence, instruction, and counsel. His degree of 
M.D. was taken in 1847, and in 1852 he was elected a Fellow of 
the Royal College of Physicians. In 1855 he was appointed a 
physician and clinical lecturer in the Royal Infirmary; and much 
about the same time he began to lecture on the practice of physic 
in the Extra- Academical School. His period of service at the Infir- 
