ANDERSON'S COLLEGE MEDICAL SCHOOL, GLASGOW.

971 the profession upon the concord and mutual esteem went on using Dioscorides and Galen." Then came "the which have happily marked our history, from the days of Reformation, when scholars were no longer content t) accept Linacre to those of Harvey, from the days of Arbuthnot and opinions on the authority of others but studied and investiGarth to those of Meade and Freind, from the days of Fother- gated for themselves, and this mental activity made its mark gill and Heberden to those of Matthew Bailie, of Babington on all branches of knowledge, botany amongst the rest. The and of Sir Thomas Watson. Nor is it here alone that we may earliest botanists of this revival period were Germanscongratulate ourselves upon the liberal and cordial feelings Otto Brunfels, Fuchs, Bock and others." Coming to the which happily prevail. The same may, I believe, be said of history of the science in Britain, the lecturer spoke of the our sister College, with which we are so happily united, not father of British botany, William Turner, physician, naturalist, only in the necessary duties of examination, but in the nobler and clergyman. Turner was born at Morpeth about the year union of joint endeavours to search out the secrets of nature 1500, and appears to have been the author of the first work by way of experiment. Long may this continue, for upon its on British plants, and this was published in three parts. The continuance rests not only the dignity and peace of our pro- next author to be mentioned is Matthias Lobel in honour fession, but in great measure our power of doing good. How- of whom the lobelia is named. He was a Fleming by birth,. but lived long in England and published an important ever ignorantly our patients will sometimes decry what they In 1570, two years after the call "professional etiquette," the wiser amongst them know botanical work in London. of he in wise lead the that this term death the run the in Latin his "Adversaria" or Turner, long foolish) published (and really means the observance of those rules which distinguish notes on plants. He was the first to group together plants a profession from a trade, which make our calling honourable naturally, and succeeled well with some, such as the leguminosse and the umbelliferae, but badly with others, the comas well as honest, which check the arts of advertisement, and direct our ambitions to obtaining the suffrages, not of the posite, for instance, which crop up all over the book. The public, which cannot, but of our profession which can, judge next English botanist of note was Gei After the publica-truly-rules of conduct which are, in fact, nothing but the tion of "Turner’s Herbal" in 1568 the knowledge of plants iricarrying into daily practice of the golden rule to do to others creased so fast that by the end of the century Turner was out For maintaining and of date and Lobel being in Latin had never become popular. as we would they should do to us. strengthening this spirit of concord and good feeling we There was clearly room for a new herbal and Gerard wrote depend upon each one of our Fellows, but especially on the one superior to any that had yet appeared in England. John example and authority of our head-an example and authority Gerard was born in 1545, and died in 1607. He was a which, as the College well knows, are worthily maintained master of the Apothecaries’ Company and owner of the by the untiring devotion to its best interests of our honoured first physic garden in England-what would now be called His" Herbal" is a profusely illustrated a botanic garden. President. folio of 1400 pages and treats of all, or nearly all, the plants, both native and exotic, that Gerard knew. It is a very amusing book and of great interest in many ways. Gerard is said to have been the first to cultivate the in England. He gives a figure of the plant. This potato OF famous " Herbal" held its place for the next hundred years. Of course during that period many botanical works were published, and of these mention may be made of a few DELIVERED AT that form starting points in the history of British botany. Thomas Johnson, a London apothecary, was in the habit VARIOUS MEDICAL SCHOOLS of going occasionally to the country in company with a AT THE few friends of similar tastes to look for plants, and in 1629 he wrote an account of one of their visits to Kent. Opening of the Session 1893-94. So far as js known this is the earliest account we have of a botanical excursion in England. He also published ANDERSON’S COLLEGE MEDICAL SCHOOL, three years afterwards what may be called our earliest local GLASGOW. flora, which may be regarded as the forerunner of such bookg INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS BY MR. THOMAS KING, PROFESSOR as the " Clydesdale Flora," by Professor Kennedy. Johnson’s OF BOTANY. greatest work was the bringing out of a second edition of "Gerari’s Herbal," so much enlarged and improved as to I’lie Early History of Botany in Britain. be almost a new work. Parkinson, another London apothe"In THE lecturer commenced by remarking that: studying cary, contemporary with Johnson, was our earliest writer on botany we generally begin with the science as it is to-day gardens, and from him can still be learned what flowEr,;, In fruits, and vegetables were cultivated in England about 1630. without inquiring into its condition in former times. other words, we do not study the subject historically and so Up to the beginning of the seventeenth century botany was learn the results of what has already been done whilst we rather a narrow science, being chiefly occupied with the and describing of plants and the enumerating of neglect to inquire into the processes by which these results naming their medicinal properties. It was a combination of have been obtained....... Botany did not originate in Britain, descriptive and medical botany, whilst little or no attention. so in order to obtain an intelligent view of its rise and prowas given to the classification, the anatomy or the gress in our own country we must know something of its physiology of plants. Turner, as before stated, arranged earlier history abroad, and that may be summarised in a the plants of his "Herbal" alphabetically by their Latin Gerard made three heterogeneous groups net few words: From the earliest times men must have been names. on any one principle. Lobel grouped plants by arranged familiar with many plants, especially with such as were their general appearance-by their habit, as botanists sayuseful or the reverse, as food plants and troublesome weeds. but gave no characters by which the groups might be marked Hence many sorts are mentioned in the most ancient litera- off from one another. However, before Lobel’s death, the ture ; but the earliest writings avowedly on plants that have Italian naturalist Cesalpino had already laid the foundation come down to us are those of Hippocrates, who lived 400 E. c. of a scientific classification of the vegetable kingdom. He He was a medical man and records the uses of 240 plants. arranged plants into fifteen classes, taking the characteristic Contemporary with him was Theophrastus, who gives a more marks from the fruit and seed. The scheme is disappointing general view of the vegetable kingdom, treating of shrubs, but, as Sachs says of it in his "History of Botany " (English roses, potherbs, grains, timber &c., chiefly from an economic translation), it is "the first plan proposed for a systematic view point. Dioscorides lived about the Christian era and arrangement of the vegetable kingdom with characters for wrote a famous materia medica, the greater part of which each division." Cesalpino was hampered by the prevailingis taken up with plants. Pliny, who was killed by an philosophy of the time. Instead of carefully examining eruption of Vesuvius, A.D. 79, gathered up into his natural objects and then forming a theory, investigators Natural History the opinions of the ancient world regard- forced facts into argument with preconceived notions. Fcr ing both plants and animals. Galen also wrote on example, it was held that plants and animals were formed on plants, but his book is not considered of much im- the same plan, hence the root of a plant corresponded to the portance botanically. Next followed the Dark Ages, when mouth of an animal; but as the mouth of an animal is in the little original investigation was attempted, as scholars upper part of its body so the root, though buried seem to have been content with sucb books as they had and in the soil, must be regarded as the upper part of a.

Abstracts

INTRODUCTORY ADDRESSES

972

plant. Cesalpino’s opinions in plants were influenced by

about the the same

principle of philosophy.

life The born

next in order of time was Robert Morison, who was at Aberdeen in 1620 He took his doctor’s degree in France,

studied

botany, and the Duke of Orleans appointed him superintendent of his garden at Blois, and in 1669 he became Professor of Botany in Oxford. He wrote a good deal, but is chiefly remembered by his classification, which, though very imperfect, is an improvement on that of Cesalpino. He uses

the basis of his system the fruit and the habit of the such groups as climbing plants, leguminosas He also wrote the first monograph on any umbelliferas &c. natural order-" The Umbellifer2e. " It is a work of much merit. Contemporary with Morison was John Ray, born at Black Notley, Essex, in 1628-that is, eight years after Morison, and in the same year as John Bunyan. His father was a blacksmith, but he sent his son to Cambridge, where he soon became Lecturer on Greek and Mathematics in Trinity College. For the purposes of study he travelled a good deal; but in 1679 he finally settled in his native place, Black Notley, where he died in 1706, aged seventy-seven, a He was a poor scholar respected by all who knew him. voluminous writer on animals and plants, one of his works being "Historia Plantarum," in three great volumes, containing a description of all plants then known. But what is of chief interest in this connexion is Ray’s contribution to systematic botany. His classification is a great advance on that of Cesalpino and Morison. He first divides plants into flowerless and flowering; then the flowering into dicotyledons and monocotyledons ; and these, again, into natural orders. We have here the skeleton of the natural system as at present constituted, though much still remained to be done. Dr. Pultney, in his "History of Botany," 1790, says: "Miller was the only person I ever knew who remembered to have seen Ray. I shall not easily forget the pleasure that enlightened his countenance when, in speaking of that revered man, he related to me that incident of his youth." In the first half of our own century a society was formed for the purpose of publishing valuable works on natural history, but for which there would not be any great public demand ; and this society was named in honour of the great naturalist the "Ray Society." Its annual publications now form a library. Contemporary with Morison and Ray was Nehemiah Grew, M.D., F.R.S., born probably in the same year as Ray (1628). Grew was the first in Britain to study tha anatomy Hooke had greatly improved the microscope of plants. about 1660, and Grew made excellent use of it in the examiBut nation of the minute structure of roots, stems &c. Malpighi in Italy was studying the same things at the same time, and both made similar discoveries, so there have naturally been disputes as to priority. Grew’s Anatomie of Plants," published in 1682, is a folio illustrated with beauas seen tiful copper-plate engravings of sections of wood &c under the microscope, and so accurate are they that they may be examined with profit at the same time. In this same book we have the first recorded statement as to Here is part of the function of the pollen of flowers. the famous passage: "The primary and chief use (of the dust of the apices) is such as has respect to the plant itself and so appears to be very great and necessary....... In discourse hereof with our learned Savilian Professor, Sir Thomas Millington, he told me that he conceived that the attire (stamens) doth serve as the male for the generation of the seed. I immediately replied that I was of the same opinion and gave him some reasons for it and answered some objections that might oppose them." Here we have the first page of that great library of botanical literature that has been writte:l on the sexes of plants, including cross and selffertiliiation. Unfortunately the book is now scarce. It seems likely that there were at one time many copies on the Continent, where there was little demand for them, so they were shipped to England ; but the ship was wrecked and all the books lost. Grew himself died in 17 LI, five years after Ray. The lecturer concluded as follows: "Ihave thus, gentlemen, traced the history of botany in England from its rise in the middle of the sixteenth century down to the beginning of the eighteenth, and from what I have said you will gather that in addition to the study of the science in its present condition I recommend also the study of its developAnd now a word in conclusion regarding botany ment. Students think, probably as a branch of medical study. with some reason, that they have to learn too many things ; that botany is of little use and so might be dispensed with. But in this, I think, they are wrong. Surely, a as

plant, having

medical man should know about that kingdom of nature from which we obtain, directly or indirectly, all our food and many of our medicines. A knowledge of the different natural orders of plants is of great importance as certain orders possess certain properties. Surely, it is a suggestive thing that such strong food-stuffs as beans, peas, and lentils are all produced by one order-the leguminosas ; and that henbane, deadly nightshade, and tobacco are all produced by anotherthe solanacese. Again, we cannot possess a comprehensive knowledge of physiology if we ignore the physiology of plants. From them we get our clearest notions of the cells; and those minute organisms to which so much attention has of late been directed-the bacteria-are members of the vegetable kingdom ; and as a recreative science for yourselves none is superior to botany, which takes its votaries to the seashore, the fields, the woods, and the hills.

UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE, DUNDEE.

INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR PATERSON.

PROFESSOR PATERSON began by recalling to his hearers of the phases through which the college had passed "Five years ago," he said, "whenI since its foundation. last had the honour of addressing an andience like this in Dundee, as a stranger who had just been taken into the fold, my only course was to give expression to hopes and aspirations ; to-day, with more intimate knowledge of the situation, and some experience of the inner workings of the institution, I feel I can speak with fuller confidence not only of the past but also of the future of the college and the medical school. The establishment of a college in Dundee was avowedly an experiment : an experiment which, from its very pluck and hardihood, deserved success and had gained it, though not without going through a period of somewhat anxious trial. Founded in an alien soil, it might have been called a conservatory of exotics. We were the exotics : the orchids and chrysanthemums, carefully selected and planted by the council, and cenderly watered and cared for by the generosity of the community. " He then referred to the generosity of citizens of Dundee through whom it had come about that during the ten years of the college’s existence number of professorships had been doubled, and the provision for teaching had so improved that to-day only the topmost rungs in the ladder of education were wanting, and these he believed would be added at an early date. This would be the more easily managed, as he pointed out, because the constitution of the college had been fortunately drawn up on wide lines; therefore, he said, it had been able to mould itself readily to the needs of the The basis of "literature, district and the spirit of the age. science, and the fine arts " was broad enough to enable the authorities to enter on a new departure at any time and in almost any desired direction. It was evidence of the highest wisdom on the part of the council that they had embraced so willingly the schemes which had from time to time been advocated for enhancing the utility of the institution on these lines, and particularly the projects for the association of the Technical Institute with the College and for the establishment of a medical school. Both schemes entailed enormous difficulties, great labour, and vast expenditure; at the same time, both were perfectly natural developments. The natural history of such institutions as that one showed that those departments of study necessarily flourished first and best which were most closely connected with the needs of the surrounding district, and that those would mature and succeed later which lay further away from the activities of the people and the heart of the community. In a natural process of evolution, after secondary education had been completely organised, the first demand in a large industrial community was for technical education- first on the lines followed by the Technical Institute, afterwards by the institution of a medical school, a law school, and a training college for teachers, and later by the less strictly utilitarian faculties of a university. Professor Paterson repudiated the suggestion that he was taking too low a ground in classing the medical curriculum with technical education, more properly and accurately so called, and adduced in support of his views the general Scotch University system as it exists to-day. ’’ The Scottish universities are." he said, "in a sense huge technical schools. A Scottish student avowedly makes his university training a means to a definite end. As a rule he aims at becoming a member of one of the professions-law, the Church, some

prominent the

=