IRVING H, CAMERON
307SHERBORNEST.
TORONTO
of the
of tEorimta
Mrs. Temple Blackwood
THIS BOOK HAS BEEN PREPARED
UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE
PRINTING AND PUBLISHING
COMMITTEE.
IRVING H, CAMERON
307SHERBORNEST.
TORONTO
Sir William Macewen,
President, British Medical Association
1922
Srtttsfy HTe6tcaI Association.
f?e 90tf? Annual
jfulg, 1922,
Cl)c
of
ALEX. MACDOUGALL.
PRINTER AND PUBLISHER. GLASGOW.
1 922.
BVING H. CAMERON
307SHERBQRNESTF
TORONTO
G52350
PEEFACE.
THIS Book of Glasgow is not intended to be in any
sense a Guide Book. The Printing and Publishing
Committee in offering it to the members of the British
Medical Association have had before them the desire to
present simply an impression of the Second City of the
Empire.
The articles dealing with the University and the
Medical Institutions give more extensive information
than the term impression usually implies. These may
be regarded as continuing and bringing up to date the
story (of the Medical Institutions of Glasgow) written
for the Meeting of the Association in Glasgow in 1888.
The other articles have been written by a group of
distinguished journalists and literary authorities familiar
with their special subjects.
The Committee take this opportunity of thanking most
heartily all the authors of the articles. The Committee
are indebted for the loan of blocks and photographs to
the Art Galleries Committee of the Corporation of
Glasgow, Messrs. T. & R. Annan, the Royal Faculty
of Physicians and Surgeons, the Directors of the Royal
Technical College, the Caledonian Railway Company, and
the Editor of the British Medical Journal. It is to Mr.
R. J. MacLennan that their thanks are especially due for
his unsparing energy and helpful advice in compiling the
Book.
They are also deeply indebted to their publishers for
their valuable help in the production of the Book.
WM. SNODGRASS,
Chairman of the Printing and
Publishing Committee.
GLASGOW, July, 1922.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. By Professor Glaister, 1
GLASGOW OF OLD. By George Eyre-Todd, - 48
ROYAL FACULTY OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS OF
GLASGOW. By Dr. Oliphant, - 57
MAISTER PETER REDIVIVUS. By Dr. John Fergus, - 72
GLASGOW TO-DAY. By William Power, - 77
THE CLYDE. By Neil Munro, 87
THE MEDICAL INSTITUTIONS OF GLASGOW. By Dr. John
Fergus, - 94
GLASGOW ROYAL INFIRMARY ; A KIRKYARD ECLOGUE.
By Dr. William Findlay, - 145
GLASGOW'S MUNICIPAL SERVICES. By James Willock, - 159
TRADITIONS OF THE TRADES HOUSE OF GLASGOW. By
Harry Lumsden, - - 166
GLASGOW MEDICAL MEN AND LITERATURE. By W.
Stewart, - - 180
A SKETCH OF ART IN GLASGOW, 1600-1922. By T. C.
F. Brotchie, 191
ECCLESIASTICAL GLASGOW IN PRE-REFORMATION TIMES.
By John Edwards, LL.D., - 203
BUSINESS LIFE IN GLASGOW. By G. B. Primrose, - 209
GLASGOW FROM THE ARTISTS' POINT OF VIEW. By R.
J. MacLennan, - 216
GLASGOW A FRONTIER POST. By George Blake, - 225
GLASGOW AS A GOLFING CENTRE. By W. Stewart, - 230
THE GLASGOW SCHOOL OF MEDICINE. By John Patrick, 237
THE ARMS OF THE CITY OF GLASGOW. By Professor
Robert Mayne, - - - - 256
IRVING H, CAMERON
307SHERBORNEST.
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THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.
By PROFESSOR GLAISTER.
THE fifteenth century saw the awakening of a desire
for acquisition of learning and the quickening of
the revival of letters. This resuscitation of learning
on the Continent of Europe was largely due to the
influence of the Church, doubtless aided bv the dis-
persal of Greek scholars throughout the countries
of Europe, and especially into Italy, by the capture
of Constantinople from the Greeks in 1453 and the
overthrow of the Greek Empire.
During previous centuries the lamp of learning
was kept burning in the cloister and cell of
monastery and priory, and there were books made
and copied, as well as richly illuminated missals for
use in the service of the Church. Several Universi-
ties were founded in Italy and in Europe generally
about this period. In England flourished in stately
solitariness the ancient foundations of Oxford and
Cambridge.
During this century Scots could be found abroad
studying at Continental centres of learning absorb-
ing the lore of the times. In 1326 the Bishop of
Moray founded in Paris the Moray College for stu-
dents from his own diocese in northern Scotland,
and this was opened later to all students from Scot-
land, and came thereafter to be known as the Scots
College. Notwithstanding the difficulties and perils
of travel in this as in other countries, students from
Scotland were to be found pursuing their quest for
knowledge at the University of Paris and elsewhere,
and, prior to the foundation of Universities in
Scotland as well as later, students of medicine in
particular attended at the Universities of Padua,
Louvain, Montpellier, Utrecht, Leyden, and others.
It has been suggested that the establishment of
Universities in Scotland would have come earlier
had it not been for the War of Independence, for
the Scots were ever eager for knowledge.
FOUNDATION.
However that may be, the crave for learning in
Scotland was first satisfied in part by the founding
of the University of St. Andrews in 1411, the credit
being due to Henry Wardlaw, then Bishop of that
city. As the Church was then the chief fountain of
knowledge as well as of power, the Pope as Head of
the Church was the source of creation of University
institutions. Forty years later, however, Glasgow
was placed in a like position. Bishop William
Turnbull, then Bishop of Glasgow, and a strong
supporter of James II. against the aspiring house of
Douglas, obtained a charter from that monarch
raising Glasgow to the rank and position of a burgh
of regality. Before this Turnbull had been Arch-
deacon of St. Andrews, and it is more than probable,
from what he saw of the results of the foundation of
a University in that city, he was inspired to ask
further favours of James II., and to solicit his
powerful influence in seeking from Pope Nicholas
2
the Fifth a Pope who had shown himself devoted to
the spread of learning the authority to found a
University in Glasgow. Accordingly, when so
solicited by the King, Pope Nicholas issued a Bull,
dated 7th January, 1451, creating in Glasgow a
" studium generale " equally for theology and canon
and civil law as for Arts and any other faculty.
The Pope, who himself had been a student of the
University of Bologna, ordained that the newly-
founded University of Glasgow and its officials
should enjoy all the same privileges, honours, im-
munities, and liberties as those of Bologna. It has
been conjectured, owing to the remarkable similarity
of the first statutes of the new University with those
of Louvain University that even Bologna itself was
regulated by the rules of Louvain. As a reason for
this conjecture, it is pointed out that the members
of the new University of Glasgow were divided into
" nations," and that in the " nations " was vested
the right of electing a Rector, a rule and practice
which have been followed down through the centuries
until the present day.
In any case, the Pope appointed Bishop Turnbull
and his successors in office in Glasgow to rule as
chancellors, with the same authority over doctors,
masters, and students as the rectors had at Bologna.
Following on this Bull, James II. in his turn
issued a letter under the Great Seal, dated at Stirling
on 20th April, 1453, in which he gave his protection
to the- University and its officials, and exempted
them prelates only excepted from all manner of
taxes, &c., within the realm. It is noteworthy that
in this letter the King designates the new institution
3
by the name which through all the centuries of its
existence it has borne, the University of Glasgow.
As might be expected under the circumstances,
the lectures given in the earlier days of the new
institution were chiefly, if not entirely, on theology
and canon and civil law, and these were delivered
at first in the chapter-house of the Friars Preachers
(Dominicans). The Faculty of Arts was the first to
receive a definite constitution. The members of it
elected a Dean annually, made laws for its own
government, and acquired property. Bachelors'
degrees were conferred and Licentiates and Masters
of Arts created, these being duly recorded in the
register of the faculty, and not in that of the Univer-
sity itself. The first general chapter of the Univer-
sity was held in the chapter-house of the Friars
Preachers in 1451, when forty members were entered,
the name eleventh on the list being that of William
Elphinstone, the father of the more famous Bishop
Elphinstone of Aberdeen. Mr. David Cadzow, then
precentor of the Cathedral, was appointed first
Rector. The meeting of the following year was
held in the presence of the Bishop, the ex o-fficio chan-
cellor, in the chapter-house of the Cathedral, which
was thereafter till the Reformation the place of
annual meeting. The first Dean of the Faculty of
Arts was William Elphinstone, then Canon of
Glasgow, above-named, and he was appointed in
1451. Soon after 1453 a house known as the
" prcdagogium " was used as the place of residence
for students, wherein also the classes in Arts were
held. This is believed to have been a building in
the Rottenrow, known for long afterwards as the
4
" auld Pedagogy," and long since removed, which
stood on a part of the site now occupied by the Lock
or Women's Hospital.
In its earlier years the new University had to
contend against not a few adverse circumstances,
such as war in the county and neighbourhood against
the Douglases by the King, which sent many
wounded and broken men into the city, plague which
broke out in 1455, and the prevalence of much con-
sequent poverty and destitution among the
inhabitants. At the same time, it was not idle in
securing a stronger footing within the city ports.
In 1454 a tenement and grounds were secured on
the east side of High Street to the north of the place
of the Friars Preachers, together with 4 acres of
land adjoining which had been conveyed to the
Friars Preachers by Sir Gavin of Hamilton, Provost
of the Collegiate Church of Bothwell, and later by
the Lord Hamilton, elder brother of Sir Gavin,
who conveyed this land to Duncan Bunch, then prin-
cipal regent in the Faculty of Arts. Other lands
and properties in the adjacent neighbourhood were
conveyed to the University in succeeding years, and
upon these lands in the High Street buildings for
University purposes were erected and occupied until
the removal of the University to its present position
on Gilmorehill in 1870.
As an earnest of his desire to assist the new Uni-
versity, Bishop Turnbull gave the University and
its members the right of trading within the city
without payment of custom, he constituted the Rector
judge in civil and pecuniary cases and to judge in
quarrels between members of the University inter
5
se or between members and the citizens within the
territory of the Bishop, the more serious cases being
reserved f or the Court of the Bishop himself. Eight
years later Bishop Muirhead granted full jurisdiction
to the Eector in all civil causes, quarrels, and cases
of injury between members of the University and
between them and the citizens ; indeed, as late as
1670 the Rector conducted a trial for murder of an
accused student. This, however, brought the Uni-
versity authorities into conflict with the magistrates
of the city, who contended that their prescriptive
rights were thus being interfered with.
For the reason, doubtless, that the generous gift
of lands in the High Street was made by the family
of Hamilton, Lord Hamilton is named in the charter
as fundator Collegii, and for the same reason the
arms of his family appear on one of the shields on
the University mace, which was first devised and
constructed in 1465, but not completed till 1490.
The story of the mace, which, with the exception of
some books and documents is believed to be the
oldest possession of the University, is a most interest-
ing one, owing to the fact that about the time of the
Reformation it was removed from the University,
was practically lost for many years from 1560, but
was restored from France, whither it had been taken,
some thirty years afterwards.
So far as the records of the University reveal,
the first Doctor of Medicine was admitted in 1469,
and the entry recording this is one of the scant
references in the early half of the fifteenth century
that the University exhibited a desire to foster the
institution of a Faculty of Medicine as a licita
facultat.
6
In 1491 James IV. raised the see of Glasgow to
the rank of an archbishopric, probably as a set-off
to the same rank bestowed on St. Andrews by James
III. in 1473. Ecclesiastics of high position vied
in turn to favour and foster the growth of the Uni-
versity, and they exhibited their goodwill by annex-
ing to the College the benefices of certain rural
churches, although some of these good intentions
did not invariably mature.
SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
By the beginning of this century, and especially
after 1522, when John Major or Maior had been
regent for four years, students had increased in
numbers, and the time and circumstances were
deemed propitious to enlarge and enhance the Col-
lege buildings. Some strong men were at this
period guiding the affairs of the Church in Scot-
land ; notably Elphinstone, of Aberdeen, who had
achieved the foundation of a University in that city
in 1494, and James Beaton, the last Catholic Bishop
of Glasgow. But the signs of the times indicated
that a revolutionary ecclesiastical change was im-
pending. The Reformation, although it arrived in
Scotland later than in Continental countries, did
at last arrive, and with it the wanton destruction of
many a noble pile of cathedral and other religious
edifices throughout Scotland. Even the cathedral
of Glasgow was in jeopardy, but it was saved by
the spirited and timeous action of the craftsmen of
the city.
The University had now put the Faculty of Arts
on a sound footing, but there is reason to doubt if
7
in other directions it had taken full advantage of
the privileges contained in the Papal Bull. It had,
for example, done nothing up till this time, nor,
indeed, for long afterwards, to establish a Faculty
of Medicine. Several malign causes operated,
perhaps, to prevent this. In the years 1506, 1507,
and 1508 there were thirty-four graduations re-
corded in the Arts Faculty. During the time
Major was regent, in 1518, forty-eight incorpora-
tions were recorded in that year. During this
period some students were in attendance who were
destined later in life to attain prominent positions.
William Elphinstone, founder of Aberdeen Univer-
sity, became a student in 1457, and graduated
Master of Arts in 1462. He filled the position of a
Regent in Arts in his Alma Mater in 1464, and
after a period of study in France returned again
to Glasgow, when he was admitted a Licentiate in
Canon Law in 1474, and later in the same year was
chosen Rector of the University. John Major was
a Master of Arts of Paris in 1496, and was admitted
Doctor of Theology of the Sorbonne in 1508. By
1521 we find him designated Professor of Theology
in Glasgow, and during the period he was identified
with the College he proved himself an able adminis-
trator and an attractive teacher. Among others
who may be named were Cardinal David Beaton,
John Spottiswood, and Robert Henrysone or Henri-
eone, who was an outstanding Scottish poet of his
day, and whose death is bewailed in Dunbar's
' Lament for the Makaris," printed in 1508.
After the Reformation upheaval, although the
University had lost the patronage and influence of
S
the Roman Catholic Church, the newly instituted
Reformed religion had still to look chiefly to the
clergy for help in teaching. If, however, the
Scottish Reformers had one strong bent more than
another, it was in enlarging the scope and fostering
the love of education in the country. In the spring
of 1560 an order of council commissioned Knox,
Spottiswood, and others to draw a scheme or polity
for the Protestant Church, and very soon there-
after they produced a plan embodying provisions
for a National Church, a national provision for the
relief of the poor, and a national system of educa-
tion. In connection with the last named, they
dealt with the range of subjects which should be
taught in the three existing Universities of St.
Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen. They adjudged
that in St. Andrews the subjects of Arts, Medicine,
Law, and Theology were to be taught, but in the
two others that the subject of medicine was to be
excluded. All this and more may be read in the
First Book of Discipline. The total cost in carry-
ing out this scheme was 9640 Scots, or 2300
sterling ; but the Reformers' scheme never fruc-
tified.
Between 1586-89, when Andrew Hay was regent,
the Town Council took a hand in rehabilitating the
University, and they expressed a desire to restore,
endow, and re-erect it. The charter of the Council
of 8th January, 1573, was confirmed by Parliament
on the 26th of the same month. Besides endowing
the University with some funds, the charter
ordained that fifteen persons should reside within
the College, and that tbe principal was to be bound
9
to live in it also, otherwise his office was to become
vacant. Twelve of the poor students were to be
nominated from the sons of decayed burgesses by
the Council, and they were to be provided with
food and drink during the three and a half years
which then made up the duration of the curriculum
in Arts. The Town Council was not exacting in
its demands for management in College affairs,
beyond seeing that their endowments were appro-
priately expended.
Andrew Melville, a distinguished scholar in
Oriental languages and theology, became principal
regent in 1574-75, and entered with energy into
teaching. He was minister of Govan from 1577,
and took a large share in drawing up the Second
Book of Discipline. So comprehensive and learned
was Melville's teaching that his fame went abroad
and brought at once increased numbers of students
to Glasgow. Probably Melville more than any
other had much to do in formulating the conditions
of the Nova Erectio of 1577. In that year James
VI., then a boy of eleven, the Earl of Morton being
then regent of the kingdom, gave a charter granting
jointly to the College and Pedagogy the rectory and
vicarage of the Parish Church of Govan and all its
tithes, rents, manses, glebes, and lands, free from
any assessment whatever, and it was part of the
new scheme that because of the enjoyment by the
College of all the Govan revenues, the principal
should preach there every Sunday, and should
reside within the College. The King renewed all
immunities and privileges to the University granted
by his predecessors, but whether this included those
10
privileges conferred by the Papal founder is doubt-
ful, inasmuch as in the interval the Reformation
had come, and there seemed to be no desire to
awaken memories of Papal foundation. Melville
set himself to secure for the College as much
revenue and property as he could. The endowment
of bursaries was encouraged, and at least one of
these the Craufurd of Jordanhill bursaries dates
from 1576. From this time onward the revenues
of the College were gradually augmented, and in
1581 Archbishop Boyd gave to it all the revenues
of the customs of the Tron and fairs and markets
within the city. In 1580 David Wemyss, minister
of Glasgow, was Dean of Faculty. He was the
father-in-law of Maister Peter Low, one of the
founders of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons
of Glasgow, now the Royal Faculty. When James
VI. attained his majority, in Judy, 1587, he ob-
tained Parliamentary sanction to annex to the
Crown all Church lands and temporalities, but he
confirmed to the University the grants he had
already made respecting the annexation of the
revenues of the Church of Govan. Nearly thirty
years later, on 28th June, 1617, James VI., now
James I. of England, on a visit to Scotland, caused
an Act of Parliament to be passed annexing the
Kirk of Kilbride and that of Renfrew with their
buildings and emoluments to the University, parts
of which lands are still in possession of the Uni-
versity. During this visit the King spent nearly a
week in Glasgow toward the end of July.
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
Charles I. was now on the throne of the United
11
Kingdom. The early half of this century was
signalised by a movement in Glasgow for providing
the University with new buildings by means of
public subscriptions. A gift from the King, con-
firmed by Parliament, of the feu-duties and teinds
of the bishopric of Galloway, and the abbeys and
priories annexed to -it, encouraged such a move-
ment. By reason of the improved financial posi-
tion, a Professor of Medicine was appointed for the
first time in the history of the University. A
charter granted by Charles in 1630 confirmed under
the Great Seal all the foundations, rights, and
securities previously conferred on the University,
and allocated to the Principal 1000 marks Scots,
with lesser sums to the regents. The famous
Zacchary Boyd was at this time Dean of Faculty.
In 1636 the King appointed a Commission to in-
quire into the revenues of the Scottish Universities,
the causes which impaired these, and to reform their
abuses. It appears that the total annual revenue
of Glasgow University at this time was 4416 Scots,
and the annual expenditure 4848 Scots.
The year 1638 was the year of the National
Covenant and of the memorable meeting of the
General Assembly in Glasgow. These were stirring
times. Scotland had become exceedingly restive by
the interference of Charles with the affairs of the
Scottish Church, and his interference reached
culminating point by his attempt to impose Laud's
liturgy on the service of the Church. From this
followed the " Bishops' wars." The Long Parlia-
ment, tired of Charles and his vagaries, swept away
at one stroke the Star Chamber, put Laud in prison,
12
The Old College, High Street
sent Straff ord to the block. But the University
remained steady and busy in promoting study. Each
student was required to possess a Bible, to wear a
gown, and in all places among themselves to converse
in Latin.
Mr. Robert Mayne, then one of the regents, was
appointed Professor of Medicine on 25th October,
1637, but he does not seem to have received much
encouragement to teach, for in 1642 the Visitation
from the General Assembly declared that the pro-
fession of medicine was " not necessar for the
Colledge in all tyme cumming " ; but he was to-
be permitted to hold the chair during his lifetime.
Hitherto the Dean of Faculty, Principal, and
the Regents were the designations of the officers
of the University, but in 1642 mention is made
for the first time in the records of the Senate.
This Senate of the Faculty came to certain findings
regarding those who were to be entitled to elect the
Dean, and who were to be the examiners for degrees,
but that in all weightier matters reference was ta
be made to the Senate. It has been alleged that the
Nova Erectio, in contrast to the wider scheme of the
Papal foundation, was to blame for the differentia-
tion, inasmuch as the former created distinctions
between the senatus academics universus and the
senatus faculiatis habito or Senate of the Faculty
vexed questions which gave rise to bitter internal
disputations, for long afterwards.
But the subscription scheme for better buildings
was meantime going forward. Many titled families
of the country, several members and officials of the
University itself, the Town Council, many of the
13
citizens, among others Thomas Hntcheson of Lamb-
hill, were generous subscribers. The new buildings,
remembered of past generations as having stood so
long adorning the east side of High Street, were now
commenced. Between 1631 and 1640 a sum of about
200,000 was spent in renovating and extending the
buildings. It is not uninteresting to note in passing
that the principle of compensation to workmen for
injuries seems to have been recognised during these
operations: thus an entry reads " Mor to J.
Quantanes man that had a sor finger hurt in our
work, xxs."
In 1645 plague broke out in the city, and was
attended by a high mortality, the population be-
coming panic-stricken. Citizens who were able left
for the country, and trade was almost at a standstill.
The University itself shared in the fear and ceased
to function in the High Street, betaking itself to th"
town of Irvine, in Ayrshire, under the advice of
David Dickson, the Professor of Divinity, who
earlier in his career had been minister of that town.
The classes met in session there during 1645-46 and
1646-47, but by 1647 the staff seemed to have ven-
tured as far back as Paisley on their homeward
journey to Glasgow, for there the classes were held
in 1647-48. In 1648 the University found itself once
more back in High Street.
The completed buildings now formed a series of
imposing structures in High Street, and constituted
a dignified edifice for the University. Their erection
covered an interval of about thirty years, were made
during the principalships of Strang and Gillespie,
but, so far as we know, no record has been found to
14
indicate who was the architect. Space forbids any
detailed description. The frontage to the High
Street is familiar to elderly persons of the present
generation. Dominating the entire structure was a
tall steeple bearing a clock made by a Glasgow
blacksmith. Behind the buildings were the College
Green and the Botanical Garden or Physic Garden,
and through them ran the Molendinar burn. Por-
tions of the old building have been preserved in
the new. A part of the frontage now forms the prin-
cipal gateway to the University buildings of to-day,
its stones having been numbered when taken down
and re-erected through the generosity of the late Sir
William Pearce, Bart. ; the old stairway in the inner
quadrangle of the old now forms the stairway to the
Professors' Court on the west quadrangle of the new ;
and a large sculptured head now forms the keystone
of a doorway in the new Materia Medica Depart-
ment.
Zacchary Boyd was a munificent donor to the
building scheme. A cousin of Principal Boyd and
himself a student of Glasgow, he remained in the
city when several ministers and the magistrates had
fled from Glasgow when Cromwell came to the city.
He preached in the High Church to Cromwell and
his principal officers. He was the author of " The
Last Battel of the Soule in Death," and his metrical
rendering of certain Scriptures was entitled " Zion's
Flowers." He left strict injunctions in his will to
his legatees, the University, that his works were to
be printed, bequeathing money for this purpose. It
is to the credit of Professor John Anderson of the
Chair of Natural Philosophy a somewhat thorny
15
personage in his time that he was instrumental in
restoring to the University three volumes of Boyd's
MSS., which had been lost at the Revolution, and
in redeeming the MS. book of subscriptions to the
building fund of the University commencing about
1631.
Cromwell was favourable to the University. On
4th August, 1654, besides giving personally 200,
he issued an ordinance providing that all moneys
previously mortified to the University should be
enjoyed as formerly, and a few days later granted
the superiorities of the lands belonging to the
bishopric of Galloway, the abbeys of Tongland and
Glenluce, and the priory of Whithorn, excepting
the superiority of the deanery of the Chapel of Stir-
ling, and further granted 200 marks sterling- yearly
from the customs of the city for the education of
pious and hopeful young men who were students of
theology and philosophy. This in the main but
confirmed the earlier grants of Charles I., but he
added the revenues of churches and benefices in
Lanarkshire, Roxburgh, and Peebles, as well as in
Ayrshire, including the abbey of Crossraguel.
Moreover, he conferred the right .on the University
to print Bibles in any language, " with all sortes
of buikes relating to the faculties of theologie, juris-
prudence, medicin, philosophic, philologie, and all
other buikes whatsumever, the same being ordered
and prifiledged to the presse be our said Universitie,
or any person to be named be the said Universitie,"
which right ceased to exist, however, at the termina-
tion of the Commonwealth.
Many generations of students of Arts have known
16
of the Black Stone, a piece of black marble forming
the seat of a chair now in the Humanity class-room,
but it is less well known that the first mention of it
in the records is contained in an entry dated 1655,
in which it is ordained that each person who pre-
sented himself for examination or laureation was to
pay a certain fee.
From the Restoration in 1660 till the Revolution
in 1688 there were troublous times in Scotland. The
re-establishment of Episcopacy caused University
revenues to shrink, and the numbers of the teaching
staff became thereby diminished. Civil affairs were
in turmoil and unrest. Owing, however, to the strict
tests of the English Universities, students from
England, some from Ireland, and a few foreign stu-
dents attended the prelections in Glasgow. In
August, 1660, Charles declared his intention to
preserve Church government as fixed by law, and
to call a General Assembly, but the " drunken Par-
liament " having made the power of the King
absolute, Presbyterian polity was cast aside, and
four clergy, Fairfowl, Hamilton, Sharp, and
Leighton, who went to London as Presbyterians,
returned appointed Bishops of Glasgow, Galloway,
St. Andrews, and Dunblane respectively.
About this time the solitary Chair of Medicine
was discontinued. The entire teaching staff was
reduced to the Principal, four regents in Arts, and
a single Professor of Divinity. In June, 1622, an
Act was passed ordaining that all teachers in Uni-
versities should be well disposed to the King and
his Government in Church and State, and that none
should be admitted to such an office who did not
c 17
submit to and own the government of the Church
by archbishops and bishops.
The life of the student during this period would
seem to have been arduous. Josiah Chorley, an
Englishman, who came to Glasgow to study in
February, 1671, records that the College bell
sounded at 5 a.m., and the roll being called, each
student had to answer to his name. The day was
spent in private study and public exercises. They
had to go to church twice on Sundays, accompanied
by the Principal and regents. On other days their
rooms were visited by the regents at 9 p.m.
The Revolution in 1688 put an end to several dis-
cordant factors previously experienced. The
change back to Presbyterianism was more agreeable
to the Scottish temperament, and the country began
to settle down to ways of peace. Owing to the
increasing demands for ministers of churches, the
number of students quickly rose : it is recorded
that while in 1696 the number was 250, it had risen
in 1702 to 400, while immediately prior to the
Revolution the number had averaged between 120
and 150. Principal Fall set out for London in
January, 1689, for the purpose of announcing the
adherence of Glasgow to the Prince, who, under the
advice of William Carstares, assented to the re-
establishment of Presbyterianism in Scotland. In
1692 James Wodrow was appointed one of the Pro-
fessors of Divinity. He was the father of Robert
Wodrow, the gossipy recorder of the events of his
day.
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
It was about this time that the conventional aca-
18
demic practice of lecturing in Latin was broken
through for the first time. Wodrow, in the Chair
of Divinity, and Andrew Ross, in that of Latin,
did not hesitate to prelect in English. Moreover,
this century was to see greater strides forward by
the University. A portion of the College garden
was set apart as a botanical garden in 1704, and
John Marshall, a surgeon in the city, was appointed
as keeper of the physic garden, as it was called,
and to teach students in botany. As has already
been noted, the first Professor of Medicine to be
appointed in the University was Mr. Robert Mayne,
who was elected to that office by the Faculty of
the University on 25th October, 1637, " to be ane
Professor of Medicine in the said Colledge, to teach
ane publict lecture of medicine once or twyse euerie
weik, except in the ordinar tyme of vacance."
Mayne was admitted a member of the Faculty of
Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 1645.
Prior to his election to the Chair of Medicine he
had been a regens pcedagogii, or Arts master, in the
College. His tombstone is in the High Churchyard,
near the Cathedral, and his epitaph is most eulo-
gistic. The Committee of Visitation, as has been
said, declared that the profession of medicine was
not necessary for the College, and the office expired
with Mayne's death in 1646.
In the middle of the fifteenth century Glasgow is
estimated to have had a population of about 2000
persons, but at that time few places either in Eng-
land or Scotland could boast of larger populations.
Even a century later the population of the city did
not reach a figure higher than between 4000 and
5000.
19
In November, 1599, James VI. issued letters
under the Privy Seal to Maister Peter Low and
Robert Hamilton, Professor of Medicine, conferring
on them large powers regarding the examination
and licensing of persons to practise the arts of sur-
gery and medicine, and to William Spang, apothe-
cary, along with them, to regulate the sale of drugs,
particularly of poisons. The jurisdiction of the
body thus created now known under the designa-
tion of the Royal Faculty of Physicians and
Surgeons of Glasgow extended over the territorial
areas of the baronies of Glasgow, Renfrew, and
Dumbarton, and the sheriff doms of Clydesdale ,
Renfrew, Lanark, Kyle, Carrick, Ayr, and Cun-
ningham. It appears to the writer that it was
probably mainly owing to the active existence of
this body that the teaching of medicine in the Uni-
versity was so long delayed. Be that as it may,
the Royal Commission of 1664 reported, inter alia,
that among the needs of the University was a Chair
of Medicine. About the seventies of the seven-
teenth century, most of the doctors of medicine in
practice in Glasgow were graduates of foreign
Universities, among whom may be cited, as an
example, Dr. Matthew Brisbane, who was Rector
of the University in 1677 and again between 1679-
81, and who graduated in medicine in Utrecht in
1661. He gave a professional opinion in the famous
Bargarran witchcraft case in Renfrewshire in 1696.
Pressure from the outside was now forthcoming for
the reinstitution of a Chair of Medicine. Ifl Sep-
tember, 1703, a student of medicine from England
applied to be examined at Glasgow, with the view
20
to obtain the degree of Doctor of Medicine. As
there was then no Professor of Medicine in the
University, but since the Professor of Mathematics,
Robert Sinclair, was a Doctor of Medicine, the Uni-
versity resolved to appoint him pro hac vice as
extraordinary Professor of Medicine, and to asso-
ciate with him as assessors or joint examiners two
physicians in practice in the city, viz., Thomas
Kennedy and George Thomson^ both of whom were
Doctors of Medicine of Ley den. The student
Samuel Bennion by name having been examined
and adjudged qualified to be admitted to the degree,
a diploma in Latin drawn up and approved by the
University was given to him, the terms of which in
part are as follow " Absolutam potestatem legendi,
docendi, consultandi, scribendi in cathedram doc-
toralem ascendendi omnes denique tarn theories
quam praxeos actus exercendi hie et ubique terrarum
quos Medicince Doctores exercere solent."
In 1712 a Chair of Medicine was again founded,
and at the same time a Chair of Law. In 1713 the
Queen, on petition, allocated funds for the salaries
of the holders, 40 a year being assigned to the
former and 90 to the latter, and in 1714 the
Faculty of the University appointed Dr. John
Johnstoun to the Chair of Medicine. Johnstoun
was a Doctor of Medicine of Utrecht. He was not,
however, an active man in his chair. Wodrow
records of him " Dr. Johnstoun teaches as little
and praelects none " (Analecta, iii., 333). He was
president of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons
in 1737-38. He resigned the University chair in
1750.
21
A movement was also made for the creation of a
Chair of Anatomy, and in 1720 Thomas Brisbane
was elected to the chair, which was to include the
teaching of botany. He entered office in the same
year. Marshall, the lecturer in botany, had died
in 1719. It seems that Brisbane did not teach either
of these subjects, and probably for this reason an
agitation arose to supersede him. Brisbane, account-
ing for his remissness, contended that to teach
anatomy an operator a dissector was required, and
his commission did not oblige him to operate, there-
fore he could not be obliged to teach anatomy. The
Committee of Visitation of 1727 put him right on
these points, as they informed him that he was
bound and obliged to teach both subjects. It does
not appear, however, that he complied with this
ruling. Because of a statement made on record, it is
believed that John Gordon, a surgeon in the city
afterwards admitted to the degree of Doctor of Medi-
cine in the University was the first to teach
anatomy within the University. To Gordon, it
will be remembered, Tobias Smollett refers in his
character of "Potion" in his novel of "Roderick
Random." When Gordon graduated in medicine in
1750, the statement on which the above belief is
founded is contained in the minute of his graduation
as follows: he was " the first person who taught
anatomy in this University long ago with great
applause and success." On two separate occasions
Gordon was president of the Faculty of Physicians
and Surgeons, and was the intimate friend of
William Hunter and of William Smellie, the
famous obstetrician. He died in 1770.
22
In October, 1730, the University Faculty per-
mitted Mr. John Paisley, also a surgeon in Glasgow,
to advertise in the Edinburgh newspapers and in
Glasgow that he was to teach anatomy within the
College that session. Paisley had been educated in
the University, had an extensive practice in the city
and neighbourhood, was a bibliophile and had col-
lected a good library. The famous Dr. William
Cullen was a pupil-apprentice of Paisley, and, later,
wheii Cullen himself began to teach, Paisley threw
open his library to Cullen's students. In December,
1740, Mr. John Love, a surgeon who had then
recently settled in practice in Glasgow from
Greenock, applied for leave to teach anatomy in the
College, which the Faculty gave, and in the follow-
ing year Dr. Robert Hamilton and John Crawford
both applied for and obtained the like leave, the
former being a Doctor of Medicine of the University.
All this was due to the declinature of Brisbane to
teach. Brisbane died in 1742, and Dr. Hamilton
succeeded him in the Chair of Anatomy and Botany.
When Dr. Johnstoun, Professor of Medicine, died in
1751, Hamilton left this Chair of Anatomy by reason
of being elected to the Chair of Medicine in succes-
sion to Cullen.
Such dereliction of duty on the part of Johnstoun
and Brisbane was not favourable to the establishment
of a medical faculty within the University, and had
it not been for further pressure from outside, matters
would" probably have continued to stagnate.
But William Cullen had just come to Glasgow
from Hamilton, where he had been in practice by
persuasion of the Duke of Hamilton ; but the Duke
23
having died, Cullen resolved to settle in the city.
He was anxious to teach, and commenced to do so
in the winter of 1745, probably at first outwith the
University precincts. Professor Johnstoun was not
averse from Cullen doing this, and Cullen began to
teach medicine within the University buildings in
the winter session of 1746. Cullen lectured in
Medicine and Materia Medica in English, but in
Botany in Latin.
The first course of teaching in Chemistry was given
by John Carrick, who was at this time assistant
to Hamilton in anatomy. He was the brother of the
better-known citizen of Glasgow, Eobert Carrick
of the Ship bank. Carrick died prematurely in 1750.
When Carrick fell ill Cullen added the subject of
Chemistry to his other subjects of teaching, as he
had zealously promoted the formation of a chemical
laboratory in the University. Johnstoun died in
1751, and Cullen was elected to succeed him in the
Chair of Medicine. It appears, however, that John-
stoune in 1749 agreed to demit office in favour of
Cullen, and with the concurrence of the University
Cullen filled his place, although he was not appointed
officially by the King until December, 1750. Prior
to Johnstoun's death Cullen had in his mind to go
to Edinburgh if chance offered, and such an oppor-
tunity did offer itself in 1755, when, owing to the
ill-health of Dr. Plummer, Professor of Chemistry
in Edinburgh University, Cullen was appointed
joint-professor in that subject, and entered on his
new duty in January, 1756. His later life and
achievements belong to Edinburgh. Dr. Robert
Hamilton was translated from the Chair of Anatomy
to succeed Cullen.
24
Of Cullen it may be said without fear of contradic-
tion that he was the agent whereby the subjects of
Medicine, Materia Medica, Botany, and Chemistry
became live subjects of tuition in Glasgow, and of
him it may be added that no man before his time
or since did more to establish on a solid and sound
foundation the Medical School of the University,
and to quicken the impulses of teaching in Medicine
in particular.
After Hamilton relinquished the Chair of
Anatomy Joseph Black was appointed in his place,
and after Hamilton's death soon afterwards he suc-
ceeded Hamilton in the Chair of Medicine.
Although Black had been a student for five years in
Glasgow in Arts and Medicine, he graduated as
Doctor of Medicine of Edinburgh University
in 1754. He was admitted to the Chair of
Medicine in April, 1757, and continued his
lectures in chemistry, in which he made the dis-
coveries which made him famous for all time. He
attracted students more by reason of his teaching of
chemistry than in teaching of medicine. His dis-
covery of latent heat was one which placed him in
the first rank of researchers. Black followed Cullen
to Edinburgh, was appointed to the Chair of
Chemistry when Cullen was elected to fill that of
Medicine.
The University shared with the city the initiation
and completion of a scheme for the erection of a
public hospital within the city. Professors Steven-
son and Jardine took an active part in this work,
the Crown gifted a site on ground which formerly
belonged to the castle of the Bishop, and granted a
25
charter to the new institution, in which the Pro-
fessor of Anatomy and the Professor of Medicine were
named as managers ex officiis. This hospital, known
now as the Royal Infirmary, was opened for the
reception of patients toward the end of 1794.
Toward the end of the century James Towers, a
surgeon in the city, applied to be allowed to teach
midwifery, to which subject he had devoted much
attention. He began to give lectures in 1791, and
continued to do so regularly as lecturer until he was
made first incumbent of the new Chair of Midwifery
in 1815. But in the Glasgow Journal for October
15-22, 1759, the following advertisement appeared:
" James Muir, Surgeon will begin a course of Lec-
tures in Midwifery upon Monday, the 12th of
November, for mid wives. He intends to begin a
Course of Midwifery for the students of Medicine
about the end of December."
As the medical side of the University exhibited
growing vitality, so did the numbers of students
attracted to its study increase. When Cullen com-
menced to teach in 1746 in the University, his class
numbered about 20, but before the century had
ended the number had increased to between 175
and 200.
The only degree in medicine then conferred by
the University was that of Doctor of Medicine, and
between 1746 and 1800 it is recorded that this degree
was conferred on 250 persons, although sometimes
it was given mainly or merely on the presentation
of testimonial letters to practitioners of approved
standing.
At the end of the eighteenth century, therefore,
26
' the Medical -School of the University was equipped
with six chairs or lectureships in .the medical cur-
riculum, viz. Medicine, Anatomy, and Botany,
Chemistry, Materia Medica, and Midwifery, and
certain of these embraced a broader exposition of
medical subjects than the title included, as, for
example, Anatomy included Surgery, Medicine such
Pathology as was then known, and, moreover, the
clinical study of medicine and surgery had been
rendered practical by the opening of the wards of
the infirmary.
NINETEENTH CENTURY.
In the early part of this century more new chairs
were founded. That of Natural History was
created by the King in 1807, its designation being
changed to that of Zoology in 1902 on the founding
of a new Chair of Geology. In 1815 the subjects
of Midwifery and Surgery had chairs established,
and in 1818 two Chairs of Botany and Chemistry
respectively. In 1831 the Materia Medica chair
was founded, taking the place of the lectureship of
much longer standing, and in 1839 Queen Victoria
created new Chairs in Forensic Medicine and the
Theory of Physic or Institutes of Medicine, now
known as Physiology. It is significant that in the
original commissions issued for these two last-
mentioned chairs the objectionable restrictions in
antecedent commissions were omitted, and the occu-
pants were declared to have all the rights and
privileges which belonged to anv other professor
in the University.
Glasgow was the first University in the United
27
Kingdom to institute a degree in surgery distinct
from that of medicine. This was done in 1817.
Its institution caused some measure of commotion
in the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of
Glasgow, which saw in this movement an invasion
of its rights and privileges under the charter of
James VI., which conferred the right believed by
the Faculty to be an exclusive right on the
Faculty to examine and license practitioners in sur-
gery within their prescribed jurisdiction. An
action was thereupon raised in 1815 in the Court
of Session to test the point whether medical prac-
titioners, who were by virtue of the degree of
Doctor of Medicine entitled to practise medicine,
were entitled also to practise surgery, as at this
time not a few were doing.
Four such practitioners were cited as defenders.
In November, 1815, the Lord Ordinary decided that
the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons had a legal
title to sue, that the defenders were entitled to
practise as physicians within the bounds of the
Faculty, but no person could therein practise sur-
gery or carry on the business of an apothecary with-
out submitting to the examination of the Faculty.
This decision was appealed against, but after a
litigation lasting four years the decision of the Lord
Ordinary was confirmed. There can be little doubt
that it was because of this decision that the Univer-
sity resolved to institute a special qualification in
surgery, which it did in 1817 in announcing offi-
cially that it had resolved to add to its list of
degrees those of Chirurgice Baccalaureus and
Chirurgice Magister, the former of which, however,
28
not proving generally acceptable, was discontinued
after a year or two. By 1819 twenty-three gradu-
ates were practising within the Faculty bounds in.
virtue of holding the C.M. of Glasgow University.
In 1826 the Faculty determined to have the validity
of this procedure tested by law, and an action of
suspension and interdict was raised in the Court
of Session, first before the Lord Ordinary, who
referred it to the Second Division. This action was
countered bv the University raising an action of
declarator. It is not necessary here to detail the
further history of this protracted litigation for
final decision was not reached until 7th August,
1840 except to add that, after going to the House
of Lords, the finding of the Courts was in favour
of the Faculty of Physicians, with costs. Thi&
caused for a considerable time thereafter estrange-
ment and antagonism between the contending
bodies. The matter was rectified bv the Medical
Act of 1858.
REMOVAL FROM HIGH STREET TO GILMOREHILL.
The first serious proposal to remove the University
to a new site was made in 1845. The offer origin-
ated by the railway company then designated the
Glasgow, Airdrie, and Monklands Junction Rail-
way, and the proposal was to remove the University
to a site on an eminence at Woodlands, overlooking
the river Kelvin. To achieve this object an Act
of Parliament was passed on 26th August, 1846, in
which the railway company bound and obliged itself
to find a suitable and commodious site, and to erect
thereon all the necessary new buildings without
29
expense to the University, in exchange for the exist-
ing buildings and lands occupied in High Street
by the University. This proposal fell through, for
different reasons, and in the end the Company
offered a sum of 12,700 for breach jof contract and
for expenses incurred by the University, provided
that a winding-up Act was passed deleting the Act
of 1846, which was agreed to, and an Act was
passed by Parliament to that effect.
But the movement for removal was not to be
denied, as it was more than time that the existing
buildings should be removed from a district which
had become so congested, and in which, moreover,
the character of the neighbourhood had also become
altered. In 1852 the Faculty of the University,
by a committee of its members, resolved to lay
before Queen Victoria a memorial on the subject.
Later, as reform of University administration
was being clamantly demanded, Lord Advocate
Inglis, in February, 1858, introduced into Parlia-
ment a bill with this object, and, after an eventful
history, the bill became law by Royal Assent on
2nd August of the same year.
Among other matters this Act provided for at least
two much-called-for reforms first, the abolition of
distinction between faculty and regius professors;
and, second, the opening of the office of principal to
laymen. The Act assigned to the Senatus
Academicus, composed of the principal and all pro-
fessors, the superintendence and regulation of
teaching and discipline, and the administration of
University property and revenue, subject to the
review and control of the University Court, which,
30
with the General Council, was a creation under the
Act. Commissioners to be appointed under the Act
were entrusted with large powers relating to all sides
of University affairs, and the author of the Act,
now raised to the dignified office of Lord President
of the Court of Session, was called to preside over
this Executive Commission charged with carrying
the provisions of the Act into effect.
Among the early conclusions of the Commission
was the expediency of the removal of the Univer-
sity to a new site, on the ground that the existing
site and buildings were unsuitable for the purpose.
Another railway company the City of Glasgow
Union Railway Company offered to purchase the
ground and buildings for 100,000, and this was
passed by an Act of Parliament in 1864. The
Treasury, on appeal by the University, made a grant
of 21,400 on condition that a sum of 24,000 should
be raised by subscription for the erection of a new
hospital, which was included in the new scheme.
The lands of Gilmorehill were bought in 1863, as
well as the lands of Donaldshill and Clay slaps.
The architect selected to make plans was Sir Gilbert
Scott, of London, and the working plans were com-
pleted by 1866. Mr. John Thompson, of Peter-
borough, was the successful contractor for the mason
work of the new buildings, and most of the stone
needed in erection was found on the Gilmorehill
ground. On 8th October, 1868, memorial stones in
the piers of the archway leading from the south
corridor into the cloisters were laid by the Prince
and Princess of Wales the late King Edward
the Honorary degree of Doctor of Laws being con-
31
ferred on the Prince on the occasion. On 7th
November, 1870, the inaugural meeting of the Uni-
versity in the new buildings was held in the lower
hall of the Museum under the presidency of the
Duke of Montrose.
Since that time many and important extensions of
the building have been made. About 1882 the Bute
Hall and the Randolph Halls were erected through
the munificent generosity of the late Marquis of
Bute and Mr. John Randolph respectively. Labora-
tory accommodation has also been extensively added
from time to time in the Departments of Anatomy,
Naval Architecture, Surgery, Chemistry, Botany,
Physiology, Materia Medica, Forensic Medicine and
Public Health, Natural Philosophy, Geology,
Mining, and during the current session of 1921-22
a large department for Zoology is in course of con-
struction. Further additions are contemplated in
the immediate future.
Nor have the needs of the students in other direc-
tions been overlooked. For social and academic
activities a sumptuous suite of buildings as a Stu-
dents' Union has been provided by the thoughtful
and most generous gift of the late Dr. John
M'Intyre, of Odiham, and for athletic exercises a
gymnasium has long been in activity, while later an
area of ground on the western outskirts of the city
has been secured as a playing field. In addition,
buildings have been erected and used for the purpose
of training an Officers' Corps.
THE LIBRARY.
The contents of the University Library now num-
32
ber about 300,000 volumes. In 1709 an Act was
passed by Parliament conferring on Scottish Univer-
sities Stationers' Hall privileges, that one copy of
every book published should be delivered to each
University; but the supplies came only fitfully. The
privilege was abolished in 1836, solatium for its
withdrawal being made by a money payment. From
time to time during its history many additions have
been made by private donors. About 1775 the num-
ber of volumes in the library numbered only about
20,000, but at that time a valuable and interesting
collection of works was bequeathed by the late Pro-
fessor Robert Simson, the mathematician, whose
portrait hangs in the Senate room, and to whose
memory an obelisk monument has long stood near
West Kilbride; in 1776 the Earl of Stanhope pre-
sented a copy of Simson's works which he had printed
at his own expense after Simson's death; Mrs.
Carmichael, daughter of Professor Thomas Reid,
the philosopher, presented 70 volumes from her
father's library, these being chosen by the Univer-
sity, in addition to 386 volumes, chiefly of medical
works, which she had presented about four years pre-
viously from her deceased husband's collection ; Mr.
John Orr of Barrowfield, a generous friend of the
University, gave the works of Virgil printed at
Venice in 1488, and the works of Lucretius, printed
at Paris in 1514 ; and the Rev. R. Boag, of Paisley,
presented a copy of Piers Plowman, printed in 1550.
The Foulis brothers, appointed University printers
in 1741, rendered excellent assistance to the Univer-
sity in divers ways. They set up their printing
establishment under the segis of the University, and
D 33
published in rapid succession many carefully-edited
and beautifully-printed editions of the classics and
other volumes. The Hunterian Library is very rich
in these editions. The excellence of the type em-
ployed by them is in no small measure due to Pro-
fessor Wilson, then occupying the Chair of Practical
Astronomy, but originally and even at that time a
typefounder in the city; indeed, this typefounding
business became famous for the beauty of its fonts
of type. The Foulis press must have been exceed-
ingly busy about this period, if one may judge from
the numerous volumes which issued from it in the
fifties of the eighteenth century. Moor, Professor
of Greek, and Muirhead, Professor of Humanity,
among other works, edited jointly the Foulis edition
of the Iliad of Homer in 4 volumes in 1756, and the
Odyssey in 1758. But the Foulises were helpful to
the University in other directions. These brothers
went to France to advance their knowledge of men
and affairs, and while in Paris received kindness and
advice from the venerable Thomas Innes, head of the
Scots College. Since many important documents
connected with the University, as well as the Mace,
had disappeared from Glasgow at the time of the
Reformation, and as it was believed these had prob-
ably been removed by Archbishop Beaton and his
suite, the University, anxious to recover these if
possible, taking advantage of the presence in Paris
of the Foulises, sent a letter to the head of the Scots
College asking that any documents belonging or
relating to the University which were in the custody
of the College, might be sent back with the Foulis
brothers. The Scots College was most obliging.
34
At their own cost they caused transcripts to be made
notarially of the Bull of Nicholas V. founding the
University, the Charter of Protection of James II.,
the Grant of Privileges by Bishop Turnbull and his
Chapter, a document entitled De Collegia Fundando
in Glasgu, dated 1537, several old Charters of
William the Lion, a Charter by Robert II. relating
to the foundation of a chaplainry in the Cathedral,
and other documents. These the Foulises brought
back to Glasgow with them. Moreover, in 1767
Principal Gordon, of the Scots College, presented
later to the University two handsome volumes con-
taining a transcript of the chartulary of Glasgow
Cathedral, including documents commencing from
the year 1116 till the Reformation.
Among other noteworthy donations to the library
may be mentioned a copy of the works of Zenophon
which belonged to James VI., printed by Hendricus
Stephanus in 1561, but, as a copy of this same edition
formerly belonging to Zacchary Boyd was already in
the library, the Senate directed that it, along with
an old illuminated Bible in MS. should be transferred
to the Hunterian Library. In 1755 the University
purchased from the Foulises the famous Clementine
MS. of the Octateuch of the Septuagint, which at
that time was looked upon as one of the most ancient
and valuable manuscripts in Europe. There were
also gifts in earlier days from George Buchanan,
historian and Latinist, of twenty volumes from Arch-
bishop Boyd, relative of Zacchary Boyd, John Snell,
the founder of the Snell Exhibitions, himself a
native of Colmonell, Ayrshire, Sir George
Mackenzie, known in less polite circles as " bluidy
35
Mackenzie," Williani Carstares, Thomas Hutchison,
of Lambhill, and others.
ROMAN ANTIQUITIES.
The collection of inscribed and engraved stones,
now housed in the Hunterian Museum, had been
gradually growing since 1738. The sources of their
discovery were Ardoch, Kirkintilloch, the vicinity
of the Forth and Clyde Canal during excavations,
Auchendavy, and other places. In 1810 the collec-
tion was handed over by the Faculty to the Hun-
terian Museum, Professor John Anderson in his
time was influential in procuring not a few of the
stones for the University collection. Of late years
the collection of Roman antiquities has been added
to by later finds in more recent excavations. Many
of the stones are in a wonderful state of preservation,
both in respect of lettering and carving. In 1779
the Provost and Magistrates of Linlithgow presented
a collection of coins, and in 1782 Mr. Fullarton of
Carstairs, a number of Roman medals. This col-
lection is well worthy the inspection of the archaeo-
logist.
HUNTERIAN COLLECTION.
From 1804 till 1807 a building was in course of
construction beside the College in High Street for the
reception of this almost unique collection of books,
coins, and pathological specimens. On removal to
the new buildings on Gilmorehill the collection has
been more suitably accommodated, although part of
the space originally allotted to it has had till now
to be used for other purposes.
By the will of William Hunter, a native of
36
Lanarkshire, near Hamilton, the University fell
heir to the treasures contained in his museum and
library. What is now housed within the Hunterian
collection, however, is more than Hunter originally
bequeathed, because of various valuable collections
which have been gifted to the University from time
to time, and which have been placed in the Museum
as the most suitable place for exhibition. The col-
lection of Hunter embraces in particular (1) a unique
array of pathological specimens which have been
duly arranged, catalogued, and described by Pro-
fessor Teacher in two volumes, and is at present
housed in the Anatomical Department; (2) an un-
rivalled collection of coins and medals of the world,
catalogued and described by Dr. James Macdonald ;
and (3) the collection of books or library, which
includes about 12,000 printed books and between six
and seven hundred manuscripts. These are of pro-
found interest to the pathologist, the numismatist,
and the bibliophile respectively.
Although a catalogue has been prepared of the
collection of the books for the use of the University,
the work has not yet been published up till the
present time. It will, perhaps, be sufficient here to
try to disclose some of the treasures of this wonderful
collection of books.
There is an illuminated manuscript Psalter of the
twelfth century, and two beautiful manuscripts of
Chaucer's " Romaunt of the Rose," one of which
is believed to be the finest in existence. There are
first editions of Milton's " Paradise Lost " and of
Spenser's " Fa3rie Queene," a first folio Shake-
speare, and not a few chaste and beautiful examples
of bookbinding.
37
There are several examples of fifteenth-century
printing. In particular, there are the following
works, printed by William Caxton :
1. Ars Moriendi, a translation from the Latin,
by William Caxton (n.d.), of which this is, accord-
ing to Mr. E. Gordon Duff, the onlv known copy.
2. Chronicles of England, 1480.
3. Cordiale 1479.
4. Booke of the Lyf of our Ladye, edited with
three stanzas added by Wyllyam Caxton, West-
minster, 1484. (John Lydgate.)
There are also the following, printed by Wynkyn
de Worde :
1. Chastysing of Goddes Chyldren, with Caxton
types, c. 1492.
2. Chronicles of England, 1528.
3. Hieronymus Eusebius, English trans, of works
of the Fathers, 1495.
4. The Ladder of Perfection, by Walter Hvlton,
1494.
5. The Ordynary of Crysten Men, Eng. trans,
from French, 1506.
6. A Treatyse of Loue, trans, from French, with
Caxton types, c. 1493.
There are several works by other early printers
1. Biblia Pauperum, a block book, c. 1450.
Nuremberg, 1475.
2. Acts of Parliament, edited by Ed. Henryson.
Edinburgh : Robert Lekpreuik, 1566.
3. Pilgrimage of Perfection. London: Richard
Poynson, 1526.
4. Description of the Sphere (Proclus Platoni-
cus). London: Robert Wyper, 1573.
38
5. Book of Psalms. London: Robert "Wyper,
1542.
' 6. The Questyonary of Cyrurgyens. London :
ibid., 1542.
7. Diet of Ratisbon, 1541. Account by Miles
Coverdale, 1542.
8. Book of Revelation, 1460. Block book made
up of coloured pictures in the life of St. John.
9. The Myrour or (Masse of Helth. Thos.
Moulton, 1539.
There is a splendid array of the works of the early
anatomists, and of these the following are chosen
for examples :
Acquapendente, Albertus Magnus, Albinus, Astruc,
Avicenna, Bartholinus (1612), Berengarius (1535),
Brunner (1683), Cowper (1694), Douglases (1720,
1755), Eustachius (1564), Fallopius (1584), De
Graaf (1671), Heller (1733), Heister (1717), Mal-
pighi (1686), Mandinus (1478), Maul (1556), the
Monros, Oribasius (1557), Ambrose Pare (1561),
Peyer (1677), Riolin (1610), Ruysch (1637), Spieg-
hel (1618), Stenson (1661), Stuart (1711), Valsalva
(1704), Vesalius (1543), Vieussens (1635), Willis
(1664).
The works of the early medical and surgical
writers are fully represented, and among them may
be noticed the following, viz. :
Albucasis (1471), Albumasar, Aretaeus, Aristotle,
Avicenna (1486), Blaue (1780), Boerhaave (1728),
Doorde (1557), Brisbane (1750), Browne (1678), Cay
(1552), Celsus (1478), Cesalpinus (1589), Deusing
(1655), Kenelm Digby (1658), Fothergill (1748),
Fuller (1701), Galen' (1525), Guillemeau (1598),
39
William Harvey (1628), Hippocrates, Works of
(1526), Lanfrancus (1565), Peter Lowe (1634),
Maimonides (1579), Mead (1702), Mercuria'li (1602),
Morgagni (1724), Ehazes (1510), Paracelsus (1573),
Paulus Aegineta (1528), Pitcairn (1701), Pott
(1756), Pringle (1730), Reid (1634), Pharmacopeia
of Eoy. Col. Lond. (1636), Sadler (1636), Talbot
(1682), Taylor (1735), Vicary (1626), Vigo (1543),
Seraphim (1497).
The early writers on midwifery have also a good
showing, viz.
Peter Chamberlen (1665), Freind (1703), Levret
(1747), De la Motte (1718), Mauriceau (1668),
Moschion (1566), Roesslin, " The Bvrthe of Man-
kynde " (1540), Smellie (1752), Manningham
(1726).
There is a magnificent collection of the works of
the classic Greek and Latin authors, many of them
Foulis editions
Of these may be named Aeschylus, Anacreon,
Marcus Aurelius, Apuleius, George Buchanan
(1579), Cicero (1471), Demosthenes (1532), Diodorus
Siculus (1472), Diogenes Laertius (1475), Dionysius
Areopagite (1480), Euripides (1571), Herodotus
(1502), Homer (1488), Horace (1476), Ignatius (1558),
Isocrates (1493), Josephus Flavius (1475), Juvenal
(1475), Livy (1470), Lucian (1503), Lucretius (1486),
Martialis (1501), Cornelius Nepos (1471), Publius
Ovidius (1471), Pindarus (1513), Ptolemaus (1535),
Plato (1513), Plautius (1472), Caius Pliny secundus
(1469), Sallust (1470), Seneca (1474), Sophocles
(1502), Suetonius (1470), Tacitus (1515), Terence
(1522), Theocritus (1495), Theophrastus (1541),
40
Thucydides (1506), Virgil (1470), of which there
are editions from the Plantin, the Baskerville, and
the Fouilis Presses; Zenophon (1476).
The early English poets and writers find an
honoured place
Rodger Bacon, Beaumont and Fletcher, Chaucer
(1493), Congreve (1752), Fletcher (1634), Frois-
sart's Chronicles (1514), Ho'linshed's Chronicles
(1587), James I. of England (1584), Ben Jonson
(1606) (Fouilis edition), Kepler (1604), Leland
(1543), John Major (1521), Massinger (1630),
Milton (1688), Sir Thomas More (1530), Sir Isaac
Newton (1711), Sir Walter Raleigh (1596), Rymer's
Foedera (1726), Shakespeare (1599), Spenser Colin
Clouts Come Home Againe, London, 1591 ; The
Faerie Queene, 1590; Alexander, Earl of Stirling
The Monarchicke Tragedies, 1667; Swift (1737),
Thirty-nine Articles on Vellum, 1563 ; Roger
Ascham The Schoolmaster, &c., 1553; Best
Frobisher's Voyage for Discovery of Carthage,
1578 ; Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, 1676 ;
Hakluyt Voyages, 1582 ; Horsley Brit. Romana,
1732 ; Richard Mather, 1675 ; Polo Marco (1485).
There are many works relating to early Scottish
history, of which mention may be made of the
following, viz.:
Barnestapolius, Obertus (pseudonym for Robert
Turner), History of Life of Mary Queen of Scots,
1588; Book of Common Prayer (R. Young, 1636-
37); Douglas Peerage Case (1766), Innocence de
Marie Reyne d'Ecosse, 1572; John Knox (1554);
Expedicion in Scotlande by the Kynges Hyghynes
Armye under the Erie of Hartford, 1544; Law of
41
Lauriston (Foulis), 1751; Jolin Lesley, Bishop of
Ross (1578), Mary Queen of Scots (Compendium
Supplicationis . . . et documenta alia de Maria
Stuart) 1587 ; Poetarum Scotorum (Arthur Johnston
and Others), 1739; Book of Psalms, by George
Buchanan, Andrew Melvin, and others, Robt.
Wyper, 1530; Sir Eobert Sibbald Scotia illus-
trata, 1684; Slezer Theatrum Scotise, 1719;
George Wishart, Bishop of Edinburgh The Com-
pleat History of the "Warrs in Scotland under
James, Marquess of Montrose, 1660; Duns Scotus,
1477 (P).
Among the works of early writers on theology and
Church liturgies in the collection the following may
be cited:
Ambrosius, Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, Early
Bibles (1475-1518, &c.), John Calvin (1554),
Chrysostome (1470), Cotton (1644), Cranmer (1551),
Erasmus (1518), Liturgies of the Greek Church
(1609), Missale Salisburiennae Ecclesie Sarum a
fine copy on vellum, 1520; Pius II. (1473).
Copies of the works of William Cullen, John
Hunter, William Hunter, Frank Nicholls, Professor
Eobert Simson, Adam Smith, Smollett, Sutton, and
Professor James Moor will also be found, as well as
various works dealing with numismatology.
The Hunterian Collection also contains three
examples of the Solemn League and Covenant relat-
ing to the University. The first contains about 345
autograph signatures of professors and students of
the University, and is dated 1643. The second has
only 192 autograph signatures, most of them prob-
ably of Glasgow citizens, dated 1648-49. The third,
42
o
3
O"
dated the same year, has also like signatures of pro-
fessors and students.
Enough has been said to indicate the richness of
the Hunterian Collection of books, and when the
catalogue is published and its contents available for
consultation, doubtless it will afford ripe material
for the student in various directions of study regard-
ing the past.
QUEEN MARGARET COLLEGE.
This sketch of the University would be incom-
plete without some mention of the women's side of
the University.
By the Universities Act of 1889 one of the duties
imposed on the Commissioners was " to enable each
University to admit women to graduation in one or
more faculties, and to provide for their instruction."
The ground had been well prepared in Glasgow for
this. An Association for the Higher Education of
Women had been formed in the city twelve years
prior to 1889, and classes had been conducted by
some of the University professors and lecturers in
higher subjects. This association prospered, and in
1883 became incorporated as Queen Margaret Col-
lege. Soon thereafter Mrs. Elder presented to the
new College Association, the residential edifice of
North Park House, which stands in its own ample
grounds on the south bank of the Kelvin near the
Botanic Gardens, and since 1884 the work of teaching
women has there been carried on. At first teaching
was devoted to subjects in Arts, Philosophy, Litera-
ture, and Languages, but a Medical School for
women was added to the new movement in 1890. In
43
February, 1892, the Commissioners under the Act
above-named issued a draft Ordinance which pro-
posed that University authorities should be em-
powered to admit women to the ordinary classes, or,
alternatively, that separate classes for them might be
instituted. The Court of the University resolved to
institute separate classes, more especially as Queen
Margaret College Association expressed its willing-
ness in that event to hand over to the University
North Park House and grounds, along with the en-
dowment fund, then amounting to over 25,000.
Such an agreement was concluded, Queen Margaret
Association was dissolved, and North Park House,
now receiving its new name of Queen Margaret
College, became the Women's College of the Univer-
sity.
Although at first the women were taught separately
in the classes of medicine, these conditions have been
gradually relaxed, until in many of the classes in
different Faculties in the University building the
sexes are mixed. This movement for the higher
education of women has prospered in the West of
Scotland, as a glance at the figures in the short
statistical table indicates. The first woman graduate
in Medicine in Glasgow was admitted to the degrees
of M.B., C.M., with commendation, in 1894; in
Arts as M.A., in 1895, and in Science as B.Sc., in
the same year. If one may judge from matricula-
tion returns and graduations, it would appear that
the subjects contained in the Faculties of Arts and
Medicine offer greater attraction to women than
those in the Faculty of Science.
Associated with the above movement and to give
44
the project every chance to succeed, a hostel for
women was established under the name of Queen
Margaret Hall. This has been in operation for about
thirty years or thereby. It was formed by a number
of persons sympathetic with the desire for the higher
education of women, and a limited liability company
of a non-dividend-paying character has kept it
nourishing ever since. The hostel stands in its own
grounds near the University, and is practically
always full of students.
DEVELOPMENT AND PROGRESS.
While in the foregoing article special attention,
perhaps, has been given to the development and
progress of the Medical School of the University,
it must not be supposed that similar development
and progress have not been made in, other depart-
ments of study. Glasgow being essentially an indus-
trial centre, allied more particularly with engineer-
ing in different branches, shipbuilding, mining, and
other industries, the University has established three
Chairs in Chemistry, and one in each of the subjects
of Naval Architecture, Engineering (mechanical and
electrical), Geology, and Mining, and thus a Faculty
of Science, aided by the recent founding of a Chair
of Applied Physics, has been established for several
years. In like manner there is an excellently-
equipped Faculty of Arts, a satisfactory Faculty of
Law, and some progress has been made towards the
establishment of a Faculty of Education; in short,
the University has spread itself out in all of its lines
of activity, thanks to the great generosity of large-
hearted benefactors in Glasgow and the "West of
45
Scotland, in founding chairs, lectureships, scholar-
ships, and bursaries.
This progress is evidenced in the increases in the
number of chairs and lectureships and the number of
the teaching staff since the University migrated from
its old home in the High Street to its new abode on
Gilmorehill. When the migration took place in
1870 the total number of professors accompanying
the principal in the valedictory procession was 26,
and the number of lecturers and assistants a com-
paratively small handful. To-day the number of
professors has risen to 46, and the number of lec-
turers, assistants, and demonstrators to 191.
Since 1870 the following new chairs have been
added:
Clinical Surgery (1874), Clinical Medicine (1874),
both of which, however, were merged in the new
Chairs of Surgery and Medicine (1911), the professors
of which teach in the Royal Infirmary; Naval
Architecture (1883); History (1893); Pathology
(1893) ; Political Economy (1896) ; Geology (1903) ;
Mining (1907) ; Muirhead Chair of Obstetrics and
Gynfficology, held in Royal Infirmary (1911);
St. Mungo (Notman) Chair of Pathology, also
held at Royal Infirmary (1911) ; Scottish His-
tory and Literature (1913) ; Tennent Chair
of Ophthalmology (1917); French (1919); German
(1919); Bacteriology (1919); Organic Chemistry
(1919); Physiological Chemistry (1919); Mercantile
Law (1920); Cargill Chair of Applied Physics (1920).
Moreover, Glasgow offers a splendid field for
clinical work in Medicine. It is near the truth to
say that about 2000 beds are available for the student
46
in the large hospitals of the city, not to speak of
the Special Hospitals, as the Royal Sick Children's
Hospital, the Royal Maternity Hospital, Samaritan
Hospital for Women, and others.
STATISTICAL TABLE
Showing Total Number of Students, Numbers of each Sex
and Students of both Sexes in Medicine.
Session .
Total
Number.
Men.
Women.
Medicine
both Sexes.
1916-17
1822
1164
658
799
1918-19
1921
1049
872
1126
191920
3924
2943
981
1654
1920-21
4727
3585
1142
1825
1921-22
4832
3620
1212
1709
1st June, 1922.
47
GLASGOW OF OLD.
By GEORGE EYRE-TODD.
IT was already an interesting place, this little com-
munity clustering at the head of the brae where
Glasgow Royal Infirmary now stands, when Ninian,
the Romanised Briton, paid his visit to it in the year
397, and consecrated a Christian burying-ground for
the use of the inhabitants. Before the Romans came
it had been a stronghold of the Britons of Strath-
clyde, for its original name appears to have been
Cathures, the cathair, caer, or fort. Across the open
muir, some three or four miles to the north, the
legionaries had built their great wall of defence
against the Highland Picts. Under the stockade of
the fort on the south ran their road, the present
Drygate and Rottenrow. Below that road the hill
sloped steeply, on the line of the present High Street,
Saltmarket, and Briggate, to the fords of Clyde,
which the stronghold was probably originally built
to defend. And close at hand, on the east, beyond
the narrow glen of the Molendinar, or Mill burn,
rose the lofty Fir Park hill, on whose top in the
grey dawn the priests of Baal and Ashtaroth could
be seen performing the rites of their ancient faith.
When the Roman legions left the country, a few
years after Ninian's time, the place may have had to
defend itself again against the Picts, and its gar-
48
Glasgow Tolbooth Belfry Tower
Built in 1626 along with a new tolbooth (council chamber, court rooms, and prison)
to replace an earlier tolbooth on the same site, this is the only civic example of the
crowned tower in Scotland. It was closely associated with the civic life of Glasgow
for 200 years, and was immortalised by Scott in the famous opening scene of " Rob
Roy." The adjoining building replaced the Tolbooth itself in 1814
rison may have seen the mighty King Arthur himself
the historic Arthur of Nennius descend to
Drygate on the way from his fortress capital of
Alcluid, now Dunbarton, to that last great battle
in which he fell, at Camelon, near Falkirk, in the
year 537.
Six years later another personage who was to
become historic arrived at the spot. Mungo was
the son of Eugenius or Owen, Arthur's nephew and
successor, and of Theneu, sister of that Medraut,
Tennyson's Modred, who had finally defeated and
slain the King. He arrived driving an ox-cart
bearing the body of a holy man, Fergus, whom he
laid to rest in Ninian's burying-ground ; and in the
glen beside it he built the Christian cell which was
to give the place its new name, Eglais-acha (ecclesise
ager), the Glesca or Glasgow of to-day. Most inter-
esting, perhaps, of the events of his life at that place
was the visit paid to him by Columba, the Irish
missionary, who had settled at lona twenty years
after Mungo's coming to Strathclyde. One may
picture the two, the sweet-voiced Gael and the
princely Briton, pacing in precious converse by the
Molendinar's bank, and, as a memento of friendship,
when the moment of parting came, exchanging their
pastoral staves.
With the death of Mungo a curtain descended on
the story of Glasgow for some five hundred years.
It rose again when that greatest of the Scottish
Kings, David, youngest son of the mighty Canmore,
overthrower of Macbeth, came hither as Prince of
Strathclyde.
Canmore and his sons, to secure their new dynasty
E 49
on the throne, introduced the feudal system to Scot-
land. In pursuance of this policy David planted
the whole of Clydesdale with settlers, holding their
lands by service to the Crown. Tancred and Simon,
Dalfin, Robesberd, and a score of others have left
their names in the upper valley, while Walter Fitz-
Alan, as High Steward at Renfrew, and Arkil of
Northumbria, as Earl of Lennox at Dunbarton,
made history by closing the water gateway of the
region against the invading Norsemen. In similar
fashion and for similar reasons Canmore and his sons
replaced the patriarchal Culdee priesthood by a feudal
hierarchy, and a new chapter in the history of
Glasgow opened when David, riding into the place,
appointed his tutor Eochy the first Roman bishop
of the see, and endowed the new church with the
great royal manor of Partick.
The new policy had its drawbacks, for the Arch-
bishop of York claimed the Bishop of Glasgow as
his suffragan, and though a later bishop, the capable
Jocelyn, secured a charter of independence from the
Pope, there is reason to believe that the claims of
spiritual suzerainty made by York had not a little
to do with the claims of temporal suzerainty made
by Edward I. and his successors, which brought
about the Wars of Succession and Independence, and
devastated Scotland for fifty years.
With a strong castle on the site of the early
British fort, with country mansions at the Bishop
Loch, at Partick, at Carstairs, and elsewhere, and
with broad lands on the Border and in Galloway,
the bishops of Glasgow were great barons. Many of
them were great men, and held high public office as
50
chancellors of the kingdom and the like. Some made
a notable mark in history; and one was a hero.
When Robert the Bruce had definitely defied Edward
of England by slaying the Eed Comyn at Dumfries,
it was Bishop Robert Wishart who rode to meet him,
absolved him for the deed at the altar of Glasgow,
made his own episcopal garments into coronation
robes, and himself set the Crown on the new King's
head at Scone. Taken clad in mail in the castle of
Cupar, he languished for eight years in an English
prison, and when, after the battle of Bannockburn
Bruce 'ransomed him along with the Queen and
Princess Marjory, the old man was blind.
One bishop of Glasgow was a prince of the Roman
Church, and his name, Walterus Cardinalis, was for
centuries emblazoned in letters of gold on the Cathe-
dral roof. The last of the long line of Catholic
prelates, Archbishop Beaton, was for forty years
after the Reformation the wise and able ambassador
of Mary, Queen of Scots, and James VI. at the Court
of France.
The scenes which Glasgow witnessed during the
feudal centuries from the days of David I. to those
of Mary Stewart were of deep interest and much
significance. One may picture the completion of the
Cathedral in 1258 by the great lady, widow of Comyn
Lord of Kilbride, whose fine head in stone, along
with the heads of her lord, of Bondington the bishop,
and of King Alexander II. himself, in the lower
church, are perhaps the earliest Scottish portraits in
existence. One may picture the patriot "Wallace
storming the Bell o' the Brae, the steep upper part
of High Street, in 1296, to avenge the seizure of
51
the Bishop's Castle by the English after the collapse
of the Scottish army at Irvine. One may reconstruct
the visit of Edward I. of England five years later,
when he lived for a fortnight in the Blackfriars
Monastery in High Street, where the railway station
stands now, and repeatedly made offerings in person
at the high altar of the Cathedral. There must have
been a building boom and the sound of much chisel-
ling in the little city when Bishop Cameron added
the strong tower and wall to his castle, and caused
each of his thirty-two canons to build a substantial
mansion in its neighbourhood. James II., he of the
fiery face, perhaps to atone for his slaughter of Earl
Douglas in Stirling Castle, had himself made a canon
of Glasgow. It was as part of that King's policy
of bringing the Church to his side in his fateful
struggle with the Douglases that he procured for
Bishop Turnbull the bull of Pope Nicholas Y. for
the founding of a University in Glasgow, and one
may picture him shortly afterwards mustering his
forces in the city, and marching thence up Clyde-
side to capture and destroy Douglas Castle, the head-
quarters of those rebel lords in Douglasdale.
In similar fashion, to avert Heaven's vengeance
for the part he had taken in the overthrow of his
father at Sauchieburn, James IV. had himself made
Canon of Barlanark and Laird of Provan. He had
the see of Glasgow made an Archbishopric, and was
often in the city performing his office and giving
drink-silver to the masons whom Archbishop Blac-
adder employed to build the rood screen and the south
transept of the Cathedral. And on that fair Septem-
ber day in 1513, when the Scottish army fired its
52
huts and inarched amid the smoke down the long
hill face to meet the English at Flodden, not least
valiant of those who went to fight and fall with him
were the stout burgesses of Glasgow under their
Provost, the Earl of Lennox.
For all the actual record that remains, James V.,
the gay Gudeman o' Ballengeich, may never have set
foot in Glasgow. He was only thirty when he turned
his face to the wall to die heartbroken at Falkland.
But in the " Tales of the Borders" the inn in the
old Water Row at Govan ferry is made the scene of
one of his many exploits as a wanderer in disguise.
Most dramatic of all, perhaps, in the annals of
the city are the appearances of that King's daughter,
Mary, Queen of Scots. Glasgow owed to her en-
lightened action the new endowment of its Univer-
sity and provision of funds for public purposes.
These benefits have been long forgotten, as has been
the prompt and gallant raid by which, in the early
days of her marriage w r ith Darnley, the Stewart
Queen drove her precious half-brother, the Earl of
Moray, and his fellow-conspirators headlong out of
the city and into exile. The history of that time
was written by the Queen's most bitter enemies,
Knox and Buchanan. By them and their successors
more attention has been devoted to the last two
visits of Mary.
One of them was her visit to her dissolute and
faithless blackguard of a husband, Henry Darnley,
as he lay sick of a loathsome smallpox in the house
of his father, the Earl of Lennox, in Castle Street
here. The occasion was turned to account by her
accusers for the dating of one of the Casket Letters
53
used as evidence against her, from her lodging in
the city probably the old mansion of her friends,
the Baillies of Provan, which still stands at the
corner of Macleod Street and Cathedral Square.
Last of all her visits was when, eleven days after
her escape from Loch Leven, she was on the way to
Dunbarton Castle, when Moray intercepted her at
Langside, two miles south of the city, and in a short
half-hour, helped by the treachery or weakness of
Argyll, her brother-in-law, and commander of her
army, broke up her forces and sent her fleeing to
the Solway shore, on the way to her long imprison-
ment in England.
The Reformation ruined Glasgow for the time.
The Bishop's Castle and the greathouses of the clergy
at the head of High Street fell to wreck, and the
tradesmen who had lived by supplying the needs of
these dignitaries found their occupation gone. At
the same time, the common grazings round the city
were sold by the magistrates and enclosed, and the
burgesses thus found their means of livelihood cur-
tailed in other ways. It is true that the old rentallers
or tenants of the Archbishops had their possession
made absolute by means of feu charters, but it took a
generation for Glasgow to find new means of liveli-
hood by recourse to industry and trade.
Already the seeds of industry and commerce had
been sown in the little bishop's city, and in the
course of a generation these began to bring a
new prosperity to the lower end of the town, about
the Cross and the riverside.
The " wauking " or shrinking of cloth in the
water of the Molendinar gave its first name of
54
Waukergate to the street now known as Saltmarket.
As early as 1420 William Elphinstone had set up
the business of curing Clyde salmon and herring
and sending them to France to be exchanged for
brandy and salt. In 1524 Archibald Lyon, a son of
Lord Glamis, had settled in the city and undertaken
great adventures in trading to Holland, Poland, and
France. And in 1578, according to Lesley, the his-
torian of the time, the burgesses were trading with
the east country in fat cattle, herring, salmon, ox
hides, wool, butter, and cheese, and to Argyll and
the Isles in wine, brandy, and brogat, a kind of
honey ale, the town possessing a " very commodious
seaport, wherein little ships, ten miles from the sea,
rest beside the bridge."
By 1605 the Craftsmen and the Merchants were
strong enough and quarrelsome enough to need a
Letter of Gruildry regulating their powers and shares
in governing the city, and the Merchants House and
the Trades House came into existence. In Crom-
well's time the Merchants of Glasgow owned as
many as twelve vessels, three being of no less than
150 tons. So substantial was the city's mercantile
success that in 1668 the harbour of Irvine, on the
Ayrshire coast, the original seaport used by Glasgow
vessels, having silted up, the community acquired
16 acres of land in Newark Bay, on the upper Firth
of Clyde, and proceeded to build the new harbour of
Port-Glasgow.
In the days of Charles II. the Glasgow Merchants
even fitted out privateer vessels to make war upon
the Dutch, and captured more than one prize. To
the days of the Merrie Monarch also belonged the
55
Glasgow Whale-fishing Company, with a capital of
13,500, five ships on the seas, a blubber-boiling fac-
tory in Greenock, and a soapwork at the head of
Candleriggs, in Glasgow. A little later came Walter
Gibson, Provost of Glasgow in 1688, " the father of
trade of all the west coasts," who did a mighty
business in curing red herring and exporting them to
France, importing iron direct to Glasgow for the
first time, and also, alas ! in shipping Covenanters
as slaves to the American plantations.
Greatest of all was the enterprise of the Darien
Expedition, in which 400,000 half the wealth of
Scotland was sunk, and in which the Merchants of
Glasgow took a large share. Part of the expedition
sailed from the Clyde, and none of the capital and
few of the Colonists were ever seen again. Thus
for a second time, at the end of the seventeenth
century, ruin and gloom descended upon the
strenuous little Clydeside city. Amid the pleasant
gardens and sweet-smelling orchards, so admiringly
described by Daniel Defoe, there was manv a sore
heart then for the sons and the fortunes that had
been lost by the cold-blooded policy of William II.
and III.
It was the Union with England in 1707 that was to
open the trade of the western world and bring its
modern prosperity to Glasgow.
50
Arms of the Royal Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons
ROYAL FACULTY OF PHYSICIANS
AND SURGEONS OF GLASGOW.
By Dr. OLIPHANT.
THE headquarters of the Royal Faculty are in the
hall at 242 St. Vincent Street. In this building
there is a reading room, well stocked with medical
journals and magazines, home and foreign, open to
medical men introduced by a Fellow of Faculty;
there is also a large medical library, of which
some particulars are given later.
At the present time the Faculty is entitled to give
a registrable qualification in conjunction, chiefly,
with the E-oyal Colleges of Physicians and of Sur-
geons of Edinburgh; it also gives qualifications in
public health and in dentistry. The fellowship is
granted by election, after examination, to licentiates
and to graduates of Universities on certain condi-
tions. This examination is of high standard, and
embraces Medicine or Surgery, and an optional sub-
ject from one of the specialties ; since the Great War
the Faculty has admitted after examination in one
subject members of the profession who served in the
war. A considerable number of younger practi-
tioners have availed themselves of this privilege or
reward, and thus fresh blood has been infused, from
which the Faculty has acquired new life. It has
also on its list a few Honorary Fellows, men now of
57
world-wide reputation, such, as William Hunter,
Brown-Sequard, the physiologist; Syme, the sur-
geon; Allen Thomson, the anatomist; David
Livingstone, the explorer and medical missionary ;
and among those living Sir William Macewen,
Eegius Professor of Surgery in the University of
Glasgow and President of the British Medical
Association in this year 1922.
The history of the Faculty has been admirably
related in the " Memorials of the Faculty," by Dr.
Alexander Duncan, the late librarian, in which all
interested in such matters will find a full account
of its vicissitudes, with biographical notes on some
of its more distinguished members and Fellows.
Of the founder, Dr. Peter Lowe, Dr. James Finlay-
son, late hon. librarian, published a memoir
(" Account of the Life and Works of Maister Peter
Lowe," Glasgow, 1889); to these works the writer
of these notes is indebted.
In its origin the Faculty occupies a unique posi-
tion among the bodies in the United Kingdom
entitled to grant a registrable qualification to
practise the medical profession. It was founded by
a charter granted in 1599 by King James VI., that
is, a few years before he left Scotland on his succes-
sion to the English throne. This charter was
secured by the exertions of Mr. Peter Lowe, the term
"Mr." at that time denoting a Master of Arts. He
was admittedly the most distinguished surgeon of
his time in this country, and had recently returned
after a residence of some thirty years in France,
where he had reached the position of " Ordinary
Chyrurgeon to the French King and Navarre," i.e.,
58
Maister Peter Lowe
Henri IV. He had seen mucli service with the
French armies in the field in " France, Flanders,
and elsewhere, the space of 22 yeeres; thereafter
being Chirurgian maior to the Spanish Regiment at
Paris, 2 yeeres; next following the King, my
Master, in the warres 6 yeeres " ; this service with
the Spanish Regiment must have been from 1588-
90, when the Spaniards helped to hold Paris for the
Catholic League against Henri IV. It is not
known, but highly probable, that he was at that
time a Catholic; as he subsequently married the
daughter of a Presbyterian minister in Glasgow,
and was condemned to do penance in the church for
some pecadillo unrecorded, he was presumably a
Protestant on his return to Scotland. He may have
'verted when he entered the service of the ruse
Bearnais; but that is mere guesswork. Maister
Peter Lowe called himself Arellian, and this word
has puzzled his biographers ; the most reasonable of
the explanations is that he was Aurelianus, that is,
a graduate of Orleans, where we can picture him
studying not only sports and life, like his predeces-
sors of a few generations back, Pantagruel, who
neglected books, lest their perusal might injure his
eyesight. He also called himself Doctor in the
Faculty of Chirurgerie in Paris. This was a title
claimed by members of the College of Sworn Master
Surgeons of Paris, known as " surgeons of the long
robe," to distinguish them from the barber-surgeons
or " surgeons of the short robe." This col-
lege dated from 1216, and was often named
the College of St. Come, from the name of
the patron saint near whose church their hall
59
was situated. Their claim of the title doctor
was opposed by the Faculty of Medicine, but had
been admitted by the King and confirmed by the
Parliament. Lowe's connection with this fraternity
is important, as will be shown later, in relation to
the founding of the Glasgow Faculty.
In the last decade of the sixteenth century Maister
Lowe returned to Britain, and in 1596 published in
London his " Spanish Sicknes," a work on syphilis,
where also he issued his " Chirurgerie " in the
following year.
In 1598 we find him as salaried or pensioned
surgeon in Glasgow, which at that date was a small
Cathedral and University town of only some
7000 inhabitants, and not so wealthy as ten
other towns in Scotland ; for details the inquiring
reader is referred to Dr. Duncan's " Memorials."
Be it noted here, however, that the number of
surgical practitioners was half a dozen, with one
physician; none of these practised obstetrics, which
was in the hands of two midwives, who, oddly
enough, were answerable to the kirk session, as
appears from the records of the Presbytery, whose
special interest in the midwives lay in these being
called on to relieve the ministers of their night
work ; ' ' for they were dischargit to go to any un-
married woman, within, while first they signify the
matter to some of the ministeris in the daylicht,
and if it be the nicht time that they take the aiths
of the said woman before they bear the bairne wha
is the fayther of it, as they will be answerable to God
and the Kirk."
Such was the unsatisfactory condition of medical
60
practice in Glasgow when Peter Lowe settled here.
There was no authority accredited to inquire into
the fitness of any practitioner; quacks and pre-
tenders flourished, and again we find the Kirk mov-
ing in the interests of reform, for in 1598 the session
represented to the Town Council that the University,
ministers, and presbytery " take cognition who are
within the town that pretend to have skill in medi-
cine and hath not the same ; that those that have
skill be retained and others rejected." Next year,
accordingly, we find the Council minuting, " The
Provest, bailleis, and counsale, at desyre of the
sessione, ministrie and elders thairof, being informit
of mediciners and chyrurgians quha dayle resortis
and remainis within this towne, and ar not able to
discharge thair dewtey thairintill, in respect thai
have not cunyng nor skill to do the same, and for
evading of inconvenientis that may follow thair-
upon, hes deput and assignit thir persones onder-
written of the counsale to concur and assist the
ministrie, certane of the sessione, and otheris cunyng
men of that arte, to examinat and tak tryall of all
sic persounes as vsit or sail happen to vse the said
arte within this towne in tyme cumyng, and with
thair advyis and consent to tak the tryall thairof,
viz., the thrie bailleis, James Forret, Alexander
Baillie, and Thomas Pettigrew, to convein with thir
persones of the ministrie, viz., the thrie ministeris,
the principall, Mr. Blais Lowery, and Mr. John
Blakburne, upon Weddinsdye nixt efter the preich-
ing in the Blakfreir Kirk, and to reporte."
It is to be noted that this activity of Church and
civic fathers followed hard on the settlement in
61
Glasgow of Dr. Peter Lowe, a " cunyng man of that
arte," and about this time he made strong repre-
sentations to the Scottish Court with the result
of obtaining the charter accrediting him to set
matters right. In a sort of preamble the charter
states, " Understanding the grit abusis quhilk has
bene comitted in time bigane and zit daylie con-
tinuis, be ignorant unskillit and unlernit personis,
quha, under the collour of Chirurgeanis, abuisis
the people to their plesure, passing away but
[without] tryel or punishment, and thairby de-
stroy is infinite number of our subjectis." Quackery
was evidently rampant then, as now, and it may be
added, there was then no General Medical Council
to try to keep it within bounds inside the profession.
In 1601 Dr. Peter Lowe went to Paris in the suite
of the Duke of Lennox, who had been appointed
special ambassador for the Scottish King at the
Court of France. A minute of the Town Council
shows that " at the special requeist and desyre of
my Lorde Duikis grace [it] hes licenciat and gevis
licence to Maister Peiter Low, chyrurgian, to pas in
company with my Lorde Duike, as ambassadour
appointit to France, and dispensis with his absence
and not remanyng of the said Maister Peiter, and
that he may injoy his pensione of the towne, and
that quhill the xi of November nixtocurn, but
preiudice of his contract in caice of his returnyng
or soner at the said tyme as sal happin his lordship
to returne."
He was the leading surgeon in the West of Scot-
land till his death, which is believed to have
occurred about 1612. This is the date inscribed on
62
his tombstone in the south wall of the High Church-
yard. The visitor will find it on his right hand,
close to the gate giving access to the Cathedral
precincts ; the epitaph is quaint
STAY. PASSENGER. AND. Viow. THIS. STONE
FOB,. UNDER. IT. LYIS. SUCH. A. ONE
WHO. CUIRED. MANY. WHILL. HE. LIEVED
SOE. GRACIOUS. HE. NOE. MAN. GRIEVED
YEA. WHEN. His. PHISICKS. FORCE. OFT. FAILED
His. PLESANT. PURPOSE. THEN. PREVAILED
FOR. or. His. GOD. HE. GOT. THE. GRACE
To. LIVE. IN. MIRTH. AND. DIE. IN. PEACE
HEVIN. HES. His. SOUL. His. CORPS. THIS. STONE
SIGH. PASSENGER. AND. SOE. BE GONE
AH ME I GRAVELL AM AND DUST
AND TO THE GRAVE DESHEND I MOST
PAINTED PEICE OF LIVEING CLAY
MAN BE NOT PROUD OF THY SHORT DAY
The stone is, unfortunately, much weather-worn,
so the Faculty erected inside the Cathedral a me-
morial designed by Pittendreich Macgillivray, the
eminent sculptor. It stands on the north wall of
the nave, almost opposite the south, or usual
entrance door, and was .unveiled in 1895.
Lowe was survived for no less than forty-six years
by his widow, Helen Weems or Wemyss, daughter
of the Rev. David Weems, who was the first Protes-
tant minister of the town. Their grandson and
their great-grandson, both writers (solicitors) in
Edinburgh were admitted as Fellows of the Faculty
as descendants of the founder, but this must not be
63
,
considered as entitling them to practice surgery, but
rather as the sort of sickness and unemployment
insurance obtaining at that time. Indeed, we find
the Faculty seriously embarrassed financially from
time to time by the claims made on its funds by
these payments to dependents, and in 1850, in the
thirteenth year of Queen Victoria, an Act was passed
by which new Fellows of Faculty were no longer
compelled to contribute to the fund raised for
widows and children of Fellows.
Of Robert Hamiltoun little is known, but that he
was a physician and an active partner in the
administration of the Faculty during his life ; even
his place of graduation is not certainly known,
though it is believed to have been Glasgow Uni-
versity.
William Spang had been apothecary in Glasgow
since 1574, and became Visitor of the Faculty in
1606. His portrait, along with those of Lowe and
Hamilton, is in the Faculty Hall.
The foundation charter, after the preamble
already quoted, showing the chaotic state of things
in the medical world in Glasgow, confers on
" Maister Peter Low, our Chirurgian and Chief
Chirurgian to our dearest son the Prince [Henry,
the heir apparent who died in 1612], with the assist-
ance of Mr. Robert Hamiltone, Professoure of
Medicine [i.e., physician], and their successouris,
indwellers of our Citie of Glasgow . . . full power
to call . . . before thame, within the said burgh
of Glasgow, or any otheris of our said burrowis, all
personis professing or using the said airt of
Chirurgie." The bounds of their jurisdiction were
64
the " baronie of Glasgow, Kenfrew, Dumbartane,
and our sheriffdomes of Cliddisdale, Eenfrew,
Lanark, Kylie, Carrick, Air, and Cunninghame ";
to examine them and to licence them " according
to the airt and knawledge that they sal be fund
wordie to exercise," to prohibit practice beyond
the licence so granted ; to amerce a fine on the con-
tumax of fortie pundis [Scots], recoverable by a
summary process known as letters of horning, under
which goods to the amount could be seized or the
person incarcerated.
Lowe and Hamilton were designated The Visitors,
and were ordained to " visit every hurt, murtherit,
poisoiiit, or onie other persoun tane awa extra-
ordinarily," and to report to the magistrates. As
regards medicine, they were to inhibit from the
practice thereof all but those who possessed " ane
testimonial of ane famous universitie quhair medi-
cine be taught, or at the leave of oure and our
dearest spouse chief medicinaire." They had
powers also, along with William Spang, an apothe-
cary, to control the sale of drugs, prohibiting the
sale of drugs which had not been " sichtit," and
of poisons, except by apothecaries charged to take
caution of the purchasers, thus forestalling some of
the provisions of our recent sale of poisons Acts.
Dr. Duncan explains that this inspection of drugs
was not to prevent their adulteration, but to ensure
that the stocks were ample in quantity and variety,
' becaus ther ar sundrie who sells drogs wtin this
brugh, and hes not sufficient drogs." In those days
the complaint was rather that the drugs were too
strong ; some of those used by ignorant quacks cost
F 65
the patient his life. Indeed, when crude drugs such
as digitalis leaves were in use, and standardisation
was unknown, it is natural that serious accidents
should occur.
In the original charter no place was found for the
barbers a deviation from the general rule of such
foundations. At an early meeting of the Faculty,
however, a bye-law was passed making provision for
a modified admission of barbers " as a pendicle of
chirurgerie," from the ordinary practice of which
they were rigorously prohibited under penalties. In
1656 the surgeons and the barbers obtained a " seal
of cause " incorporating them as a city guild. Thus
a dual incorporation was established that of the
Physicians and Surgeons under the Royal Charter
and of the Surgeons and Barbers under the " seal
of cause." So complicated a connection could not
last, and after much bickering between the two
bodies the union was severed by mutual consent in
1719.
The charter of 1599 bears evidence in some of its
provisions, as has been already mentioned, of having
been modelled, in part at least, on the rules of the
Fraternitie.of St. Come, and partly on those of the
Faculty of Medicine of Paris, from which the name
of the new incorporation was taken. This charter
was confirmed in the reign of Charles I., and rati-
fied in 1672 by James VII., but the vagueness of the
wording of it and changed conditions of medical
practice arising out of the development of the
medical side of the Universities led ultimately to
much squabbling and litigation, and the English
judges of the House of Lords, in their ignorance of
William Cullen
Scots law and procedure, were inclined to doubt tlie
validity of the original charter, but finally gave
their decision in favour of the Faculty in 1840.
Since the medical legislation of 1858 many of the
original powers have naturally been in abeyance,
and, as already stated, the Faculty grants qualifica-
tions to practise in the United Kingdom, and has no
jurisdiction in Glasgow over those who have
obtained their qualifications elsewhere.
The permission to assume the title of Royal
Faculty was granted by His Gracious Majesty King
Edward in 1909.
The earliest medical teaching in Glasgow was
given directly under the auspices of the Faculty.
One of the duties of the Visitor, that is, the Presi-
dent of the surgeons, was to give systematic instruc-
tion to the apprentices of the surgeons, with regular
examinations to test their professional progress
during the course of and at the end of their
pupilage.
All the men associated with the origin and
rise of the Glasgow Medical School were members
of the Faculty, and attained to the office of Prases
(President of the Physicians) or Visitor. Among
the names of distinguished Fellows, mention may
be made of William Smellie, a practitioner in
Lanark, who went to London and Paris to get the
best teaching on midwifery, and, finding none, came
back to London and made his name as a teacher;
(Smellie was unquestionably the leading obstetrician
of his time in Britain on the practical side, as
Hunter was on the purely scientific side, these
two Fellows of Faculty raised midwifery from
67
a mere handicraft to the position of a science) ;
William Cullen, who laid the foundation of the
Glasgow Medical School, and was an early teacher
of William Hunter ; Joseph Black, the chemist who-
expounded the doctrine of latent heat; and many
others will be found in the " Memorials " of Dr.
Duncan.
Reference has already been made to a few names
from among those who have been elected Honorary
Fellows. Of these David Livingstone was a
Licentiate of the Faculty in 1840, and was elected
Fellow in 1857. His career is too well known to-
require further notice here, but the writer of these
notes, who saw him laid to his well-earned rest in
Westminster Abbey, may be permitted to pay a
humble tribute to the memory of that indomitable
man, who tramped through the wilds of Africa with
the same pith and dourness with which he had
trudged daily from his home in Blantyre to his
medical classes in Glasgow. The example of his
ideals is worth holding up to the present-day
student spoon-fed on Carnegie grants.
The Faculty Hall, after various changes of site
necessitated by the growth of the town, is now at
242 St. Vincent Street. Here the Fellows meet
monthly to transact their business, and there, too,
are the examination rooms for the Licences and
Fellowship. The use of the rooms is granted to the
chief medical societies, such as the Medico-
Chirurgical and its various branches and the
Obstetrical Society, while most of the medico-
political meetings are held there.
The reading room is open to medical men intro-
68
Joseph Black
duced by a Fellow, and the library is open for
consultation to all medical men for the encourage-
ment of research. The collection of books was
begun at the end of the seventeenth century, as soon
as the first Faculty Hall was erected in the Tron-
gate, and, from a MS. list of 1698, seems to have
contained many works on history and general
literature, which at some time unknown have been
ruthlessly weeded out, no doubt from want of shelf
space. Indeed, at the present time, apart from a
few works by or about medical men and a good
selection of books relating to the history of Glasgow
and neighbouring counties, the library consists
almost entirely of works that fall within the pro-
vince of medicine and its accessory sciences. It
now contains some 80,000 volumes, and the Faculty
justly prides itself on its excellent catalogues. The
books are selected by a committee representative of
the various branches of the profession, with the aim
of maintaining a good all-round medical library.
Successive honorary librarians for a considerable
time have fostered the study of the history of
medicine ; and by gifts of special collections such
as the Mackenzie on Ophthalmology and the Reid
on Midwifery, certain departments are specially
rich.
No attempt has been made to collect incunabula
or other rarities, but there are a few fifteenth and
early sixteenth-century volumes. Of these mention
may be made of the " Liber Serapionis aggregatus
in Medicina simplicibus " (Venice, 1479) ; and
" Opusculus cui nomen Clavus Sanitationis " of
Simon Januensis (Venice, 1488) ; the " Liber de
69
Proprietatibus rerurn " of Bartholomaeus Anglicus
[de Glanvilla], 1491. Another work from the
Venetian press, the " Liber Medicinse " of Gov-
donius, 1496, and the first edition of the " De
humani corporis fabrica " of Vesalius, Bale, 1543,
are represented. The library contains all the edi-
tions, except the first, of Peter Lowe's " Chirurgie,"
and his " Spanish Sicknes," and a number of six-
teenth-century works. Among more recent rarities
is Wiseman's " Treatise of Wounds," 1072, of
which only three other copies are known to exist.
Sir Thomas Browne's "Pseudodoxia Epidemica," in
the first edition of 1G46, is a recent addition by p-ift.
There are also some curious manuscripts, chiefly of
local interest, but among those of general interest
are notes of clinical lectures by John Hunter and
Gregory ; an account of John Hunter's establishment
at Earl's Court and kindred matters by William
Olif t ; a treatise by Burns on the eye, with coloured
drawings; and Hopkirk's " Flora Glottiana," with
drawings. In the reading room is a bookcase pre-
sented by the family of the late Sir William
T. Gairdner, for whom it was specially designed
Old G., as he was affectionately known by hi
students and friends.
There is no museum, properly speaking, for the
pathological collection was handed over to the Royal
Infirmary in 1832, but the hall contains a few
curious and treasured relics, such as the gauntlet
gloves of Peter Lowe, the founder, and instruments
used on the " Victory " at the time of Nelson's fatal
wound, and those used by Lister in Glasgow. In
the hall, too, are some portraits, some of artistic and
70
Alex. Duncan
some of historic value, such, as those of the founders
Lowe, Hamilton, and Spang; of Cullen, Living-
stone, and Mackenzie, with those of most of the
recent presidents; and of Alexander Duncan, the
learned historian of the Faculty, who was for many
years its erudite and zealous librarian.
71
MAISTER PETER REDIVIVUS.
By Dr. JOHN FERGUS.
If Maister Peter Lowe were here,
Revisiting this earthly sphere,
What wondrous changes would he see,
"Within his famous Faculty.
No well-kept wigs would he behold,
Nor stout Malaccas topped with gold,
No fine point lace nor trig knee-breeches,
Nor buckled shoon to deck our leeches.
The great " Chirurgeon to King James "
Would hardly recognise the names
We moderns use for our diseases
(He'd talk of " vomit," not " " emesis ")
His shapely hands amazed he'd raise
At modes of treatment of our days,
Like unknown tongues would be our terms,
And he might ask, " Sir, what are germs?
And what is this appendicitis,
That of your modern days the blight is?
Methinks it is the Iliac Passion
That in my day was much the fashion."
Imagine Peter, as I say,
Meeting our President to-day ;
How suave his greeting and how fervent,
" Good-dav to you, Sir; Sir, your servant."
How courtly, too, his gracious bow.
" Tour Faculty, how goes it now?
72
Time does not rust it, Sir, I hope,
Nor usage circumscribe its scope?
And tell me, prithee, if to-day
The good old custom still holds sway,
That poor folk are attended gratis,
Or if that now quite out of date is."
And then most likely he'd inquire
How moderns treat diseases dire :
As thus " Now, tell me, Sir, I pray,
Is bleeding still the rule to-day?
In my time every one was bled
Till he was cured or he was dead.
Not bleed at all ! Gadzooks, how strange !
Ah rue, Sir, what a dreadful change.
Podagra now, how do you treat it?
You say you very seldom meet it,
But once or twice in twenty years.
Odds bodkins can I trust my ears?
Podagra rare? Why, who'd have thought it?
When we old leeches daily fought it
With lohoch, julep, quilt or clyster,
Or bolus, apozeme or blister.
" Now the King's Evil doth your King
Touch daily for the monstrous thing?
My lord King James God rest his soul-
Touched oft and multitudes made whole.
You say your liege lord never touches
Grammercie, Sir, but this too much is.
In scores the loathsome thing must kill 'ee ;
Sir, do I hear you say ' bacilli ' ?
What are bacilli? Are they humours,
Or vapours, essences or tumours?
73
Or have they aught of magic function?
Must certain stars be in conjunction,
Or doth the moon affect their power,
Or are they garnered from a flower?
The term, Sir, is quite new to me :
'Tis not in my ' Chirurgerie.'
" The Falling Sickness! There, I'm sure
We're both agreed upon the cure :
Plaister of orris-root lay on,
Two drachms of Diaphsenicon,
Open the Hsemorrhoidal Vein ;
Give Guaiacum decoction plain ;
Cups to the occiput apply,
Which first you well should scarify ;
Insert a seton near the ear :
Your patient will have naught to fear.
You ' treat with Bromides ' ? What are these?
Some notion new from overseas ?
From Araby or far Cathay?
A passing fancy of the day.
'"' How oft, Sir, do you burn your witches?
A horrid crew, ill-omened bitches,
Of Satan's seed a monstrous birth,
Who are far better off the earth.
You say you never burn the creatures,
But search for stigmata their features,
And 'mid their howlings and their squealings,
You psycho-analyse their feelings,
To find an (Edipus complex ;
Such terms my mazed mind perplex,
And when as cure you talk of Freud,
Gad, Sir, I feel some whit annoyed.
74
" And pray, Sir, what's a Spiro-chete,
And hath it aught to do with gleet?
Or perad venture 'tis a genus
Of th' ills of those who worship Venus?
A germ, you say, surnamed the white
Luetic so I've guessed aright;
Well, Sir, the treatment then is clear :
Hydrargyrum for full a year,
Pushed till the gums begin to stink
Decoctum sarsae oft to drink,
Argenti nitras oft instil,
A cure will justify your bill.
You give salvarsan? My dear Sir,
You'll pardon me if I aver
That I have not the faintest notion
Whether it be a pill or potion.
You give it with some hollow pin,
You introduce beneath the skin,
Or else inject it in a vein.
Sir, the procedure's far from plain,
And if you will excuse the word,
In my opinion, quite absurd.
' ' Do virgins now how scant their dress !
Still suffer from the Green Sickness?
And do you still with mugwort treat it,
Though fever-few at times may beat it?
' The Leucocytes you count,' you say,
Most learned Sir, pray, what are they?
You make my ancient senses reel
With neutro and with basophile.
I fear me much my day is past,
I know not what's a normo-blast,
Of lymphocytes I never heard,
75
And pol^morph's an unknown word
Alack ! it is the common fate
To flourish, then pass out of date
'Mid terms so strange my mind meanders,
We never heard of them in Flanders,
Where I have served Sir, do I hear
You say that of our Fellows dear,
Many have served there once again?
" Thank God, I have not lived in vain,
Thank God that still our noble Art
In righteous cause c .n bear its part,
And that to keep earth's peoples free,
The Fellows of our Faculty
Held it a great and glorious thing
To serve their country and their King.
And 'mid the fierce turmoil of steel,
The sick to soothe, the wounded heal.
Strengthened by grace from heaven above,
And filled with pity and with love.
" But, God be thank'd, sweet Peace is here,
Where may she rest for many a year ;
And on our sea-girt, well-loved isle,
May Heaven be pleased for aye to smile ;
And may we of our God get grace,
To live in mirth and die in peace.
Sir, it hath given great joy to me
To see my infant Faculty
Grown to so good and great estate.
The Fellows I congratulate,
And beg my parting compliments
To you and future Presidents."
And with those words our Founder's shade
Into thin air again would fade.
76
GLASGOW TO-DAY.
By WILLIAM POWER.
ONE of the familiar "ploys" of educational
psychology is to give out a word and get the scholars
to write down what it immediately suggests.
Employing the word " Glasgow " in this way in the
smoke-room of an English hotel, one would get
something like the following "reactions": "A
God-forsaken hole; a bigger and worse Leeds." " A
great city: handsome buildings, kindly people, good
business." "Drizzle and smoke; big black tene-
ments ; bare feet drunk men and women." " Ship-
yards and steelworks; fine shops, splendid car
service." " Sunday in Glasgow's the nearest thing
to hell I can imagine." "City Chambers picture
gallery old cathedral all first-rate, but slums un-
speakable." " Go-ahead place, lots of money and
not afraid to spend it." " How any one can live
there I can't conceive." " Suppose it's because it's
so easy to get to places like the Trossachs and the
Kyles of Bute." "Edinburgh." "Ah! that's a
contrast." "Beauty and the beast eh? "
One thing at least can be deduced with fair
certainty from these curiously diverse impressions.
The favourable ones were those of people who had
stayed with friends and been taken about; the un-
77
favourable, of people who had been stranded in
hotels. Glasgow does not cater well for strangers.
To arrive in Glasgow on a wet Saturday by way of
Cowlairs or St. Rollox, and spend a lonely week-end
in a hotel, is an experience which the native cannot
contemplate without a shudder. It would have been
more tolerable fifty years ago, when the city was
about half its present size and there were charming
rural nooks within half an hour's walk from George
Square. To-day, with the country smudged or
suburbanised for miles around, Glasgow is driven in
upon itself for solace. Hence the prodigious out-
cropping of super-teashops, picture houses, and
dancing palaces. These, however, are mere escapes,
of decidedly limited appeal. Their existence may
point the need for open spaces and gardens within the
city, for an attractive lay-out of the banks of the Clyde
above the harbour, for the dissipation of the smoke-
cloud that robs the city's life of light and colour, for
the conversion of the depressing and furtive " pub "
into a cheerful cafe, for the removal of ugly posters,
and for the building of an opera house and a
repertory theatre. Glasgow's main defect, in short,
is that she has not yet thoroughly realised her
metropolitanism.
The greatness of Glasgow and her glaring defects
are explained by her history. Under the shadow of
the Cathedral she rose in Celtic times from an obscure
village to a market town, which straggled downhill
and linked up with a fishing hamlet on the Clyde ;
with the founding of the University in 1450 she
became a social and cultural centre, and the tradi-
tions of this period were continued into the
78
mercantile era commemorated by the Tron Steeples
and St. Andrew's Church when, under the segis
of the tobacco lords and the University professors,
Glasgow became perhaps the most beautiful citv in
Britain. Then came the industrial era, the deepen-
ing of the Clyde, the working of the coal and iron
measures, and the floodiiig-in of semi-barbarous
41 labour " from starving Ireland: Glasgow burst
her mould, and added to her traditional functions
those of a greater Birmingham and a smaller Liver-
pool. The result was disharmony, a weird mixture
of handsomeness and ugliness, of wealth and squalor.
Glasgow is still struggling to sort out the mess that
culminated about the middle of last century. The
struggle is not so much material as psychological.
It is the effort of the constructive, intellectual, and
civically minded elements to counter the sordid and
illiberal influences that got the upper hand during
the height of the manufacturing era.
In the Middle Ages the centre of Glasgow was at
the south-west corner of what is now Cathedral
Square. By the sixteenth century it had shifted to
Glasgow Cross, where the Tolbooth Steeple now
stands. A century ago it was somewhere towards the
eastern end of Ingram Street, and fifty years ago
the municipal government found a permanent seat
in George Square. To-day the vital centre of the
city is at the crossing of St. Vincent Street and
Renfield Street. The comparative nearness of all
these points to one another indicates that the expan-
sion of the city has been in all directions. But the
greatest spread has been westward. From the St.
Yincent Street corner, open or at least "smudged "
79
country can be reached in less than a^n hour's walk
north or south, and in slightly over an hour's walk
due east; westward, the tenements, docks, factories,
and shipyards extend for about nine miles. A
hundred years ago offices, dwelling-houses, and
factures fill the interspaces of all save the most
vision of the future growth of the city was the laying
out of the terraces at the west end of Sauchiehall
Street about 1825, and since that time there has been
a leap-frog process, which has resulted in a city as
definitely sorted out as London. The " heavy "
industries have retreated to the outskirts of the city,
mostly to east or west. Springburn, in the north,
has become the centre of a huge locomotive-building
enterprise. The miscellaneous or small-scale manu-
facturers fill the interspaces of all save the most
exclusive of the residential districts; their chief
concentration is in Bridgeton and Mile End, con-
tiguous regions vieing in frowsiness with anything in
London's East End.
Within the city proper the most notable feature
during the last fifty years has been the conversion
of " genteel " tenements or terrace houses into
working-class dwellings, workrooms, or offices.
Monteith Eow, owing to its fine frontage on Glasgow
Green, has been spared this degradation. But the
old villas on Garngad Hill have been submerged in
squalor ; Gorbals, once an eminently " select "
quarter, has become Glasgow's ghetto, paraded after
nightfall by patriarchs in bowler hats and long sur-
touts, buxom Miriams and Eebeccas, and keen-eyed
swains who have spent the day auctioning jewellery
and drapery in Trongate booths. Garnethill, on th
80
The Art Galleries and Museum
ERRATA.
P. 80, 1. 6 should read
" factories were jumbled together ; the first real pre-
north of Sauchiehall Street, lias a synagogue at one
end and a fine new Roman Catholic church at the
other, with every conceivable kind of " institution"
between ; it is also the hill of the fairies, who may
be seen at mid-day, tripping down to rehearsals.
Sauchiehall Street is the western part of Glasgow's
shopping region, which extends down the chief
thoroughfares to Trongate, with its fashionable
centre at Buchanan Street, where the motors of the
" County " occasionally grace the scene.
" Sauchie," as some of its pseudo-Oriental features
may indicate, is also Glasgow's pleasure street, and
in this capacity has probably a big future before it,
for Glasgow has made a vigorous awakening from the
Puritanical slumber of the senses.
The City Chambers, the Royal and Stock Ex-
changes, and the braw banks are all noted in the
guide book. But the guide book omits to note that
between Queen Street and Hutcheson Street lies the .
"werrus" region possibly the "essential" Glasgow
which is so admirably described in Frederick
Niven's novel, " Justice of the Peace." To the
rather wersh odour of piece goods succeed the very
definite aromas of cheese, ham, and vegetables. East
again of the provision quarter you enter the fragrant
precincts of the slaughter-house and the cattle and
meat markets; not a delectable district, but one
abounding in quaint human character and thumping
big cheques. Here you may round off your educa-
tion by making acquaintance with a " benefit shop/'
a " fent merchant," and the thing actually connoted
by the term " noxious trade."
If the suggestion experiment I spoke of at the
G 81
beginning were tried on a Glasgow man, the name of
his city would probably conjure up Gordon Street
at five on a weekday afternoon. Short, straight, and
closed in by buildings at either end, it is like a huge
tank or trench. At one minute to five the stream,
though full, is normal. At five there is a deep
murmur from all the streets around, and in an
instant the vehicular traffic is blotted out by a silent,
hurrying throng overflowing the roadway: with a
fixed unseeing stare each shuffles or trots away,
obtaining his paper from the newsboy by a two-
handed process like that of an engine-driver ex-
changing discs with a signalman. At Hope Street
you find yourself struggling against the main inflow.
It is pouring down from Blythswood Hill, in
Madeleine Smith's day a genteel residential quarter,
now the legal, accounting, shipowning, and general
" business " quarter of Glasgow its City, in fact
with St. Vincent Street as its main artery. The
chief outflow of this flood is the Central Station:
the " Cathcart Circle " an interesting survival
collaborates with the "cars" in transporting the
majority of Glasgow's white-collared or shirt-waisted
brigade to the pleasaunces of Govanhill, Mount
Florida, Shawlands, Strathbungo in short, to that
vast borderland of tenements and terraces and cot-
tages known as the "South Side," which at its
western end burgeons into the gorgeous villadom of
Pollokshields, with lakes, parks, feudal battlements,
and an outlook over ancient policies to the wooded
slopes of Renfrewshire.
A smaller outflow finds its way to Dennistoun, a
smoke-scourged suburb hemmed in by cemeteries,
82
o
I
o
breweries, chemical works, and slums. Then there
is a large but more leisurely percolation to the West
End, the region encircling Kelvingrove Park
(Glasgow"' s finest achievement in town planning)
and the Botanic Gardens. On the South Side one
enjoys fresh, air, modern conveniences, and
adjacency to open country, but one is cut off from
the life of the city south of Jamaica Bridge there is
not even a decent restaurant and the majority of
the people are " incomers " who have never seen
Glasgow Cathedral or read "Senex" or MacGeorge.
In the West End one is in close touch with the main
life of the city, and, through the University and Art
Gallery and the orchestral concerts, with the wider
world of art and letters ; Woodsidehill was the crea-
tion of Glasgow's consuls and barons, and Hillhead
and Dowanhill have a mellowness that makes up for
smokiness. In Great Western Terrace Kelvinside
possesses the finest domestic work of Glasgow's
greatest architect, Alexander Thomson, whose works
including St. Vincent Street U.F. Church and
Queen's Park East U.F. Church the visitor should
not miss.
I have accounted only for the bourgeoisie, grande
et petite. What of the working-classes, who form
the vast majority of the population, and on whose
skill and physical endurance the prosperity of
Glasgow is based? Drink, bad housewifery, and
recklessly large families have depressed their con-
ditions, and they are probably the worst housed
people west of Moscow. The dingy frowsiness of
the huge barracks in which they are crowded makes
the magnificent stone of which Glasgow is built as
83
depressing a medium as English brick. The canyons
of Hutchesontown, Camlachie, and Govan are un-
responsive even to the crepuscular glamour that
poetises the massive buildings of the City and the
West End. That grace of body or mind should be
rare in such conditions is little wonder, or that such
intellect as manifests itself should run to an arid and
resentful doctrinairism. Yet in the fundamental
human virtues the Glasgow working classes are rich,
and in character and humour second to none among
the world's peoples. Their recent intellectual
awakening, though it took a crude and even dan-
gerous form, was an earnest of strength and purpose,
and of a determination to make the world a little
better than they had found it. In this determination,
strengthened and guided by school teachers and by
the more humble-minded of the " intellectuals,"
lies the chief hope of our race. It is probably in
those streets which the visitor cannot pass without a
sinking of the spirits that the germ of the greater
Glasgow of the future could be found.
Glasgow is pre-eminently a " business " city, a fact
which is unduly insisted upon by those of its in-
habitants who make it an excuse for neglecting its
civic and social interests, or for not devoting their
leisure to anything more strenuous than golf or
musical comedy. But in the view of those who love
their city, industry and business are only means to
the great end of making the very most of the rich
human material contained in a city where the racial
elements of Scotland, mainly Celtic, are uniquely
blended. In a historical perspective the University,
even more than the Town House, is the real centre of
84
Glasgow. Glasgow has a great tradition to maintain
in philosophy, theology, economics, and, above all,
in applied science and in medicine. Her record in
art goes back to the days of the Foulis Academy in
the middle of the eighteenth century, and the Celtic
element manifested itself in the taste and enterprise
of buyers like M'Lellan, in her early appreciation of
genuine impressionists like Monticelli, Boudin, and
the Marises, and in the rise of her own Glasgow
School, which diverted the whole current of British
art. In literature she has been less notable, owing
to the failure of her publishers and her reading
public to realise her new position as the vital centre
of Scottish life. A like failure has accounted for her
poor record in drama as compared with Dublin, but
the defunct Repertory Theatre left an impulse which
has been directed into national channels by the
Scottish National Theatre Society, recently founded
in Glasgow. With huge stone quarries and much
money at her disposal, Glasgow was bound to take a
hi^h place architecturally among British cities, and
at certain periods her building was directed by a
Roman taste for symmetry and magnificence. The
wealth of splendid architecture that she has hidden
away in her blanket of smoke, to be blackened by
soot and eaten by nitric acid, will only be fully re-
vealed when the citizens of this proud and ancient
city have at last made up their minds to follow the
example of Pittsburg and consume their smoke in
furnaces instead of breathing and swallowing it.
Our abiding vision is of a Glasgow familiar with sun-
shine, a Glasgow in which trees can flourish and
white collars last for two days, and in which the
85
standard of public tidiness shall be equal to that of a
respectable middle-class home ; a Glasgow fit for com-
mercial travellers to live in, and evoking from
strangers such praises as were showered by Defoe
upon the Glasgow of two centuries ago.
THE CLYDE.
By NEIL MUNRO.
THE Clyde has been Glasgow's highway to fortune,
as it is to so many of her people the highway home
to the hills and the shores they came from. She
made it herself what it is, out of a shallow, narrow
salmon stream, where wherries precariously navi-
gated ; robbed it of its pellucid and pastoral charms,
and in a century turned it to " a tide in the affairs
of men." To-day it would not seem lovely to the
eye of the enthusiast who came to Glasgow for trout-
fishing, but it is, let us remember, still but in the
making. While we admire the Titan energy
thundering on the rivets of its shipbuilding yards,
and wonder to see great battleships, and argosies
from every land, come and go through miles of
pasture land and wharf to and from this inland
city, we forget the spoiling of the salmon stream;
the more readily because we know the Clyde is, as
has been said, but in the making even yet, and its
purification has made extraordinary progress in the
past quarter of a century.
Glasgow's Harbour is seen at its best at night, or
at the end of an autumn afternoon, when a swollen
sun, setting behind thickets of masts, gilding the
stream, glorifying smoky cloud, transfiguring dingy
store and tenement, closes a vista that captivates the
87
eye and spurs the imagination as might some
vision of a Venice stained and fallen from virtue,
an abandoned mistress of the sea. In such an hour
and season we forget the cost of mercantile
supremacy, and see in that wide fissure through the
close-packed town a golden pathway to romance or
the highway to the hills and isles.
Glasgow, with a gust, as it were, for the sea
breeze and the evening sun, has always stretched
her arms importunate to the west. A day may
come when she shall climb to the wholesome breezy
plateau of the Mearns to the south of her indeed,
her tramcars are already there; but for long she
has, by preference keeping close to the river bank,
crept seaward, usurping towns and hamlets on the
way, and it looks as if she will not be content until
she dips her feet in the waves that beat against
Dumbarton Rock.
Govan and Partick are old, but Whiteinch, Toker.
Clydebank, Kilbowie, and Dalmuir, all on the north
side of the Clyde, between the River Kelvin and
the Kilpatrick Hills, are suburbs whose origin is of
yesterday ; and are the homes of the men who work
in the shipyards or in the factory of the Singer
Sewing Machine Company, whose clock tower
dominates the smoky valley.
Thirty minutes' sail or so from Glasgow is the
town of Renfrew, one of the oldest burghs in Scot-
land, which has the honour of giving a title to the
Prince of Wales. Renfrew is on the south side of
the river, at the mouth of a burn which has never
lived down the saddening fact that it is called the
Pudzeoch. Yet Renfrew proper is half a mile from
88
Dumbarton Rock
Loch Lomond
the Clyde now a town of one long street, and
numerous lanes and wynds that branch off
irregularly from it.
At Erskine Ferry we are really at the portals of
the Firth, and the hills on the north side of the
river, furrowed by hurried streams and scarred by
storms, are the avant-gardes of the veritable High-
lands. Old Kilpatrick lies at the foot of these a
tranquil little town, identified by tradition with the
nativity of St. Patrick, patron saint of Ireland.
This claim for Kilpatrick is contested by some
foolish place called Boulogne-sur-mer, but locally
we laugh at that. No one, at least, can wrest from
Kilpatrick the glory of having, in the confines of
its parish, had the western terminal forts of that
thirty-six-and-a-half mile turf en wall which .An-
toninus, by his legate, Lollius Urbicus, built
between the Forth and Clyde. Nature had defrayed
the first expense of the redoubts, and Chapel Hill,
an eminence beside the village, has rewarded the
assiduity of antiquarian research by trouvailles of
Roman monumental tablets, vases and coins.
From the foothill of Kilpatrick the alien keepers
of the vallum had a noble view, which has lost none
of its charm in a thousand years, unless we count
the smoke-stacks of the ships in Bowling Harbour,
a poor equivalent for the long sweeps and beaked
prows of the Roman galleys which sheltered in the
lee of Dumbarton or under the Hill of Dun. No
finer panorama of the Clyde may elsewhere be
discovered.
Yet Old Kilpatrick is in no way maritime : fields
and the railway separate it from, the river shore.
89
on which there is a shipbuilding yard, and Bowling
is the port. Bowling is at the western extremity
of the Forth and Clyde Canal, and in its harbour
the best of the passenger steamers on the coast are
wintered, to have the rust-scale tapped from their
hulls and their toilets made for the following spring.
To the west of Bowling stands the rocky promontory
of Dunglass, on which survive a few remnants of
the castle which was once a stronghold of the Clan
Colquhoun. Dunglass Castle, as a junior warden
to Dumbarton in the command of the passage of
the Clyde, played its own part in our civil wars,
and might have been a staunch old " biggin " yet
were it not for the shameless custom of elected
persons to make quarries of their noblest monu-
ments. On the highest part of the promontory
there stands an obelisk to the memory of Henry
Bell, " father of steam navigation in Europe."
Leaving Bowling, we are at the inner end of the
estuar}-, and seen at low tide it makes no great
demand on the imagination to believe one looks on
an ebbed fiord that has lost most of its power to fill
again. Bleak areas of ooze lie at low tide between
the now far-separate shores, and the navigable water
is an attenuate stream whose course is marked by
many lights. Once, no doubt, the terraces on the
shores were sea cliffs fringed with wood, and the
rocks proclaim the vigour of the floods that beat on
them. Geologists have had what seems a ghoulish
satisfaction in dwelling on the meaning of this
strange recession they have seen in the far future
a Clyde devoid of estuary altogether, reduced to a
rivulet or deepened to a dead canal. The
90
Vale of Leven, behind Dumbarton Rock, is a re-
claimed swamp, and a depression of thirty feet
would admit water to Loch Lomond; the parks of
Erskine and Cardross are made of the accumulated
soil of yesterday, which an inundation of twenty
feet would restore again to the dominion of the sea.
Dumbarton, the castled rock, that stray and
stranded brother of Ailsa and the Bass, which jumps
to the eye a little too insistently to be resolved into,
and harmonised with, its immediate environment,
has a history that peculiarly endears it even to
Scotsmen who may never have set foot on it. It
is an imperishable monument to divers races,
dynasties, and ideals, and to countless nameless and
forgotten men. Wallace was its prisoner, Bruce
captured it almost single-handed, Mary, Queen of
Scots, sailed from it as a child to France, and
visited it again in 1563 ; surely wraiths of them all
must haunt that lonely rock against which fleets
and armies have been drawn.
The output of Loch Lomond, the Leven, at one
time described as " unspeakably beautiful," but
now soiled irremediably by the printfields and dye-
works of the " Vale," loses the last relics of its
Arcadian origin when it passes into the shadow of
Dumbarton Eock. Old Cardross village faced
Dumbarton on the opposite bank of the Leven, and
beside it was the castle which was the favourite
residence, and the death-place, of King Robert the
Bruce, but no stone of the building stands above
the turf of the knoll on which ceased to beat that
gallant heart the Douglas hurled among the
Saracens.
91
Though the Cardross of Bruce was on Leven bank,
the modern village of that name is farther down
the Clyde, from which the railway separates it.
Cardross marks the limit of the jurisdiction of the
Clyde Navigation Trust. It is a pleasant, leafy
walk from it to Helensburgh, the prosperous town
of ease which curves for two miles round the bay
near the Gareloch mouth.
Greenock, on the opposite shore of the Clyde, has
been spoken of in a most eulogistic manner by
Wordsworth, who must have seen it under the most
favourable auspices. Though Greenock, as we see
it to-day, is a growth of little more than a century,
its roots are deep in time. James Watt was born
here, in a house which subsequently became a
tavern. Through grey, strenuous, and constricted
thoroughfares giving glimpses of the harbours, one
enters the district of Cartsdyke and passes to the
burgh of Port-Glasgow, three miles on the eastern
side of Greenock.
Port-Glasgow owes its existence to the commercial
spirit and enterprise of Glasgow merchants, who,
refused the privilege of establishing a harbour
either at Dumbarton or Troon, bought thirteen
acres of land in Newark Bay in 1668, laid out the
ground for a town, and built a harbour. Port-
Glasgow grew rapidly beyond the limits originally
contemplated, but its supremacy as a supply centre
terminated with the awakening of Greenock and
deepening of the Clyde. Its prosperity is now due
to its shipbuilding yards and various marine
activities.
Greenock in its leisure hours, however, but rarely
92
takes theEue-end road to the "Port" ; it muck pre-
fers the breezier way to Gourock, two miles farther
down the Firth. For kings have sailed from Gourock,
a circumstance which has had less influence on its
history than the discovery that herring could be
cured by smoke. The first red herring known in
Britain was here produced in 1688. Railed in on
the highest terrace of the promontory, round both
sides of which the burgh hangs, is a rough grey
boulder to which old passing mariners paid super-
stitious respect. To-day their sirens hoot derisively
and " Granny Kempoch " does not care, mysterious
and serene in her incongruous surroundings.
Finally, at the lighthouse of the Oloch, the Clyde
makes no more pretence at being a river, hardly
even an estuary, though its name on the maps goes
down far beyond its islands to the gaunt and lonely
pinnacle of Ailsa Craig.
93
THE MEDICAL INSTITUTIONS OF
GLASGOW.
By JOHN FERGUS, M.A., M.D., F.R.F.P.S.G.
IN a city which at one time had as its motto " Let
Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the Word," it
is perhaps natural that the practical application of
the preaching of the Word the care of the sick
poor should find its expression in the erection of
the first general hospital in the vicinity of the
venerable Cathedral of St. Mungo, round which
Glasgow has grown from a small ecclesiastical
settlement to the vast city of manifold activities
and innumerable interests which, with its more than
a million inhabitants, proudly boasts itself to-day
as " the Second City."
THE HOSPITAL SYSTEM OF GLASGOW.
Glasgow's hospitals may be partitioned off into
five or six different classes.
First in the affection of the people and medical
profession of the city stand the great voluntaiy
hospitals, general and special. All of these cannot
be fully described, but even the smallest of them
holds a place in active life and charity.
Next come the municipal hospitals under the
government of the Corporation of Glasgow, famous
the world over for municipal enterprise, from the
94
Lister, 1862
far-off days of .1859, when the waters of Loch
Katrine were brought to Glasgow, down to the
present, when the street tram system is an object
of envy to other cities.
In the third class may be placed the hospitals
under the poor law authorities the Parish Councils
and the District Boards of Control.
The fourth class includes only one hospital, the
Glasgow Royal Mental Hospital at Gartnavel a
private. institution governed by a body of directors.
In the fifth class, standing alone, may be placed
the Princess Louise Scottish Hospital for Limbless
and Disabled Soldiers and Sailors at Erskine House.
Last of all, the private nursing homes of Glasgow
deserve a place, playing, as they do, a large part in
the intimate life of the well-to-do people of the city.
THE ROYAL INFIRMARY.
In 1792 the premier general hospital, the Glasgow
Royal Infirmary, had its foundation-stone laid with
fitting ceremony on the site of what had been the
Archbishop's Castle or Palace, and the old building,
with its dignified design, by the brothers Robert
and James Adam, though now demolished, remains
in affectionate remembrance in the heart of many a
Glasgow graduate, while its fame is imperishable
in the annals of surgery, as it was within the walls
of the old Royal Infirmary that the illustrious Lister
carried out his epoch-making experiments in anti-
septics, which have rendered his name immortal,
and which have conferred untold benefits on suffer-
ing humanity in every corner of the habitable globe.
Though the new building of to-day is very different
95
in size and equipment from the old Royal Infirmary
which the members of the B.M.A. knew when they
visited our city in 1888, the spirit is the same and
the tradition remains.
Space does not permit of more than the briefest
reference to some of the many distinguished men
who have served the infirmary and added to its
lustre. After Lister's, the name that most readily
occurs to members of the B.M.A. is that of Sir
William Tennant Gairdner, most scholarly and
accomplished of physicians, who occupied the
presidential chair at the annual meeting of the
Association in Glasgow in 1888, and whose memory
is still a living and quickening impulse in the
Glasgow Medical School ; Andrew Buchanan, a
courtly gentleman of the old school whose researches
into the coagulation of blood were classics in their
time, and whose invention of the rectangular staff
in the now almost obsolete operation of lithotomy
was in its day considered a noteworthy innovation ;
Robert Perry, sen., who was the first clearly to
distinguish typhus from typhoid fever ; John A.
Easton, the originator of the famous " syrup " that
still bears his name ; Harrv Rainy, an eminent
medical jurist in his time, and a shrewd physician ;
Sir George H. B. Macleod, Lister's successor in the
Chair of Surgery; Sir Hector C. Cameron, Lister's
friend and disciple, still, fortunately, with us, the
doyen of consulting surgeons in the city; and the
long and distinguished line of Cowans who, for over
a century, through many generations, have rendered
eminent service to the infirmary, and one of whom,
a well-known cardiologist, still carries on the
96
Quadrangle of the Royal Infirmary. The Lister Ward is
on the ground floor of the block on the extreme left of the
photograph
splendid traditions of his family as one of the
medical " chiefs " in the infirmary to-day.
Last, and by no means least, the honoured Presi-
dent of the Association at this annual meeting, Sir
William Macewen, was one of the surgeons to the
infirmary from 1877 to '1892, when he was appointed
to the Eegius Chair of Surgery in the University, a
position he still fortunately adorns, but it was in
the Eoyal Infirmary that he laid the foundations of
his brilliant and original work in brain and bone
surgery, and gathered the material for the epoch-
making paper on the surgery of the brain which he
delivered at the meeting of the B.M.A. in Glasgow
in 1888, and which evoked an outburst of enthusiasm
such as can but seldom have been seen at a medical
meeting.
The new building, erected from the designs of Mr.
James Millar, A.R.S.A., F.R.I.B.A., occupies the
site and approximately follows, though on a more
spacious scale, the plan of its predecessor, the
buildings, with their contained quadrangle, forming
more or less a rectangle, whose long axis runs
parallel with Castle Street, the continuation of the
historic High Street.
As in the old building, the Medical House, or
Queen Victoria Block, with five sets of wards on
separate floors, forms the front of the infirmary
facing south and looking into Cathedral Square, the
towering height of the infirmary buildings rising to
six storeys above the ground level, rather dwarfing
and throwing into the background the venerable
Cathedral of St. Mungo.
The Surgical House, the Robert and James Dick
H 97
Block, stands on the north side of the quadrangle,
and extends also to the east, while joining the Sur-
gical and Medical Houses is the Central or Temple-
ton Block, which, in addition to containing one of
the three surgical wards which make up a surgical
" unit " on each of the six floors, also houses the
wards for special departments, such as gynaBcology,
throat, nose, ear, skin, &c., and in it also are
found the administrative departments, the
managers' board room, the residents' dining hall,
the nurses' dining hall, offices for the superin-
tendent and matron, the superintendent's residence,
the apothecary's laboratory, and on the roof, where
its odours cannot penetrate into any of the wards,
the splendidly equipped kitchen of the infirmary.
The electrical and X-ray department, probably
as complete as any in the kingdom, is located in the
basement of the Medical House, while the venereal
diseases wards are found in the Surgical Block.
Separated from the main buildings, and standing
slightly to the north-east, are found a splendidly
modern pathological institute and museum, equipped
with every convenience for research, and containing
a large lecture room, in which the University pro-
fessors whose chairs are attached to the Royal In-
firmary deliver their lectures.
In this part of the grounds also is found the
Isolation Block, while the Nurses' Home, in which
about 270 nurses are housed, is situated to the east
of the Surgical House of the main building, to
which it is connected by a glass-covered corridor.
The side of the infirmary next to Castle Street is
as yet incomplete, but one-half of the Admission
98
Block has been erected, and forms a well-designed
department for surgical out-patients and emergency
treatments. The medical out-patient department
is as yet housed in the old buildings in Castle Street,
to the north of the Surgical Block.
At the time this article is written there is still
standing in the quadrangle of the modern building
a part of the North or Surgical House of the old
Royal Infirmary, on the ground floor of which is
still to be found the ward in which Lister carried
out his historic researches on the antiseptic treatment
of wounds.
In the infirmary as at present there are 42 wards
21 surgical, 11 medical, and 10 for special
diseases, while 105 medical officers are attached to
the infirmary in various capacities and in varying
degrees of seniority. The nominal number of beds
is 665, divided into 346 surgical, 219 medical, and
100 special diseases ; but as the daily average num-
ber of patients resident was 680*2 in 1921, it is
evident that the accommodation of the infirmary has
to be somewhat elastic to meet the calls upon it.
Of indoor patients, 10,821 were treated in 1921,
8028 of these coming under the heading of surgical
cases, while 2793 were medical cases.
In the outdoor department there were 41,857 first
attendances, and a total attendance of 170,129. Of
the 41,857 first attendances, 2000 odds were medical,
8000 odds 'were surgical, 3274 for throat, nose, and
ear, 2170 for skin diseases, 3054 for venereal
diseases, 531 for the electrical department, while
16,374 were accident and urgent cases treated as out-
patients.
99
The resident staff of the infirmary, inclusive of
270 sisters and nurses, is 342, while the non-
resident staff, inclusive of tradesmen, clerks, porters,
cleaners, servants, &c., but exclusive of the medical
staff, is 206.
The ordinary expenditure in 1921 amounted to
118,250, the average cost of each fully occupied
bed being 171 19s. 7^d., while the average cost of
each patient under treatment was 10 16s. 2^d.
In respect of munificent donations, the Central
Block (for special diseases) is named " The Temple-
ton Block," to commemorate the two generously-
minded brothers who gave so open-handedly to the
infirmary, and whose portraits now hang in the
board room, while the North Block (surgical), for a
similar reason, bears the name of " The Robert and
James Dick Block," and in the entrance corridor
of this block will be found a wall medallion of the
master-spirit of the whole institution, the never-to-
be-forgotten Lister.
Among other endowments or gifts are the " Schaw
Floor " (wards 28, 29, and 30), commemorating a
wealthy and generous lady of Glasgow; the " Ed-
ward Davis Wards " (Nos. 23 and 24), the
"William Robertson Ward" (No. 3 in North Block),
the " John Macfarlane Ward " (No. 38), the " St.
Andrew's Society of Hong Kong ' Heather Day *
Memorial Ward " (No. 39), while in addition there
are 77 endowed beds and 6 endowed cots.
An interesting feature of the present-day in-
firmary is the large number of students, both male
and female, now attending it for clinical instruc-
tion, the total for 1921 being 481, of whom 340 were
men, while 141 were women.
100
When the University was situated in the historic
High Street it was natural that the Royal Infirmary,
in comparatively close proximity, and then the only
general hospital in the city, should be the clinical
home of the students, but with the removal of the
University to its present site at Gilmorehill, in 1870,
and with the opening of the Western Infirmary,
closely adjoining the University, in 1874, the
Western Infirmary became perforce the centre for
the clinical instruction of the University students,
and the Royal Infirmary became -comparatively
neglected, though a certain amount of clinical
teaching existed for the students of the Royal
Infirmary Medical School, later incorporated as St.
Mungo's College, which still persists, and for
students taking other extra-mural classes, but the
attendance was comparatively small relatively to
the attendance at the Western Infirmary.
A fresh impetus, however, to clinical teaching at
the " Royal " was given by the admission to the
medical profession of women, who at first had their
clinical teaching exclusively in the Royal Infirmary,
where they were taught in cliniques separately from
the men students, but for several years now the
classes in the " Royal " have been " mixed,"
though it is only within the last two years that the
clinical classes in the Western Infirmary have been
thrown open to women as well as to men.
Another factor contributing to the rejuvenescence
of the Royal Infirmary as a clinical school has been
the enormous increase in the numbers of medical
students, which led to the foundation by the Uni-
versity in 1911 of four new chairs viz., of Medi-
101
cine, Surgery, Midwifery, and Pathology at the
Royal Infirmary, the occupants of these chairs
giving systematic lectures as well as clinical or
practical teaching in the Eoyal Infirmary.
But now even these facilities for clinical teaching-
have, under the stress of the numbers of students of
medicine, proved quite inadequate, so that, in addi-
tion to the Victoria Infirmary the third general
hospital of the city, situated on the south side of
the river, at an inconvenient distance from the
University the splendidly equipped parochial
hospitals have been utilised for clinical teaching,,
the instruction given in them being recognised by
the University as qualifying courses.
With the three general hospitals of the city and
the large and well-equipped parochial hospitals all
available for clinical purposes, the clinical material
thus provided coming, as it does, from a city of
over a million inhabitants, with many diversified
activities, and surrounded by a thickly populated
district with many large industrial towns is prob-
ably not excelled in variety and interest by that of
any city in the kingdom.
THE WESTERN INFIRMARY.
The Western Infirmary, closely adjoining the
University, was not opened till a few years after
the University had established itself at Gilmorehill,
and in the interval the students had to take their
clinical classes at the Royal Infirmary, being con-,
veyed from the " Royal " to the University in
omnibuses, of the journey ings in which many weird
tales are still told by the older generation.
102
The need for an infirmary in the rapidly growing
western district of the city had been foreseen for
some time before the University migrated from the
High Street, and during the years 1868-69 plans
had been prepared for an infirmary to accommodate
about 350 patients, but it was, for various reasons,
considered inexpedient to proceed with the whole
building at once, so that only a part (containing
about 200 beds and the administrative departments)
of the projected buildings was gone on with. The
foundation-stone was laid in August, 1871 ; the dis-
pensary department was opened on 2nd January,
1874 ; and on 2nd November, 1874, the infirmary
proper was opened, with 200 beds for in-patients.
Extensions, however, rapidly took place. In 1878
Mr. John Freeland, of Nice, left 40,000 for erect-
ing and equipping " The Freeland Wing," which
was formally opened in 1881, while in 1883 ery-
sipelas wards were opened, and in 1890 electrical
apparatus for electrotherapy and diagnosis was
installed. In 1896 the spacious and thoroughly
equipped pathological building was opened, while
in 1897-98 notable events were the opening of three
new operating theatres, a considerable extension of
the Nurses' Home, and the opening of wards for
16 patients suffering from burns. In 1904 the very
fine new dispensary for out-patients was opened,
while in 1906 the new North-west Wing, with three
additional wards, was opened, this part of the
building being completed by the opening of the
South-west Wing in 1911, in which year also the
admirably equipped clinical laboratory became
available. In 1913 an extension of the pathological
103
building became necessary, and 1915-16 saw the
opening of the Edward Davies admission and
casualty department, with five operating theatres
and three lecture rooms, while in 1918 a school of
massage, medical electricity, and Swedish remedial
exercises was established, and for its accommodation
a massage building was opened in 1921.
The record of the infirmary will thus be seen to
have been continuously progressive, as was only to
be expected when it is remembered that since 1892
the infirmary has had as superintendent a gentleman
who is widely recognised as an authority on hospital
construction and maintenance, and to whose foster-
ing care and advanced views the infirmary owes
much of the position it now occupies. Dr. Mackin-
tosh, in a letter to the writer, points out that when
he became superintendent, in 1892, there were in
that year 3545 indoor patients treated to a con-
clusion and 26,884 consultations in the outdoor
department, while last year there were about 9000
indoor patients and 140,000 attendances in the
outdoor department.
There are 32 wards in the infirmary, divided into
five sets of medical wards and six sets of surgical
wards, with wards for the various special diseases
ear, throat, and nose, skin, diseases of women,
and venereal disease the number of the medical
and surgical officers on the staff being 60, while
there is a resident staff inclusive of 226 sisters and
nurses of 368, and a non-resident staff of 74,
making a total staff of 502.
In 1921 the average daily number of in-patients
was 557, the average period of residence of each
104
Sir W. T. Gairdner
patient being 21/25 days, while the average cost
per patient was 10 9s. 2d.
In 1921, attending the clinical classes of the six
surgeons and four physicians there were in all 525
students, of whom 458 were men and 67 women.
Like the Eoyal Infirmary, the Western is main-
tained by voluntary contributions, and a striking
feature in the finance of both institutions has been
the great increase in recent years of the contribu-
tions from the employees in the great public works
and shipbuilding yards. Nothing, perhaps, proves
more conclusively the real soundness of heart and
true generosity of the working classes in Scotland
at least than the way in which they have rallied
to the support of the voluntary hospitals in the time
of their financial crisis.
Though the Western Infirmary has not the vener-
able history of the Royal Infirmary, it has in its
existence of close on fifty years built up for itself a
fine tradition of admirable service excellently per-
formed, and many eminent men have served" it
faithfully and well.
Sir William T. Gairdner, prince of clinicians and
most erudite of physicians, as Regius Professor of
Medicine, was appointed to wards at the opening of
the infirmary, and held office, spreading his own
and the school's fame throughout the world, till his
lamented retiral in 1900, and to his old students
the Western Infirmary is ever associated with the
memory of the beloved teacher who was known to
all as " Old G."
Sir George H. B. Macleod, too, as handsome a
man as the profession has ever seen, as the holder
105
of the Kegius Chair of Surgery, also had wards in
the "Western from its inception till his death, while
Sir Hector C. Cameron was one of the earlier sur-
geons to the infirmary, and still retained that
position when he was appointed Professor of
Clinical Surgery on the death of Professor George
Buchanan.
Sir Thomas M'Call Anderson, a widely known
dermatologist, had a long association with the in-
firmary, first as Professor of Clinical Medicine, and
later as Eegius Professor of Medicine at the Univer-
sity as successor to Gairdner, while Samson
Gemmell, most popular of consultants and a
favourite with the students despite his somewhat
assumed cynicism, after a term of office at the
Royal Infirmary, returned as a " chief " to the
Western, where he later succeeded M'Call Anderson,
first as clinical professor, and later as regius, which
he held till his death in 1913.
James Finlayson, too, one of the best clinicians
of his time, as his " Clinical Manual " showed,
and an erudite bibliophile, was one of the physicians
of the infirmary during a long period of years, and
his thorough and painstaking methods of teaching
were of infinite value to his students and the school.
Of the present staff of the infirmary this is not
the place to write, but suffice it to say that they
worthily maintain the best traditions of their pre-
decessors, while it is to the lasting repute of the
infirmary that it still is fortunate in having on its
staff the distinguished surgeon his name a house-
hold word the medical world over who occupies the
honoured and honourable position of President of
10G
the British Medical Association at this meeting.
The Association has done itself honour in selecting
Sir William Macewen as its President at this time,
and the honour of having one of themselves as the
presiding genius of this meeting is one which not
only the profession, but also the citizens, of Glasgow
highly appreciate.
The Western Infirmary is fortunate in its sur-
roundings, as, in addition to its own grounds of
considerable extent, it has in Close proximity the
spacious precincts of the University, while closely
adjacent, and lying somewhat to the east, is the
large open space of the Kelvingrove (or West End)
Park, through which meanders the River Kelvin,
which gave his title to that illustrious physicist, the
great Lord Kelvin, of whose name and fame the
University and the city are justly proud.
Both the Pvoyal and Western Infirmaries are
fortunate in having convalescent homes in the.
country as adjuncts to their beneficent activities,
that of the Royal Infirmary being the Schaw Con-
valescent Home at Bearsden (about five miles from
Glasgow), while that of the Western Infirmary is
the Lady Hozier Home at Lanark, which owes its
inception to the Hozier family, of which Lord
Newlands a most generous donor both to the Uni-
versity and the Infirmary is now the representa-
tive. In 1914 Lord Newlands donated a sum of
25,000 for the endowment of the Lady Hozier
Home, in which, as well as in the Infirmary, he
takes a warm personal interest.
THE VICTORIA INFIRMARY.
The Victoria Infirmary, the third of the large
10T
general hospitals, is pleasantly situated on the south
side of the river, in the Langside district, almost on
the site of the battlefield where the hapless Mary
Queen of Scots, after her escape from Loch Leven
Castle on 2nd May, 1568, saw her forces irretrievably
defeated by the army of Regent Moray, who was in
Glasgow when the news of Mary's escape from, her
island prison reached him. From the stricken field
of Langside Mary fled as fast as horses could carry
her to Dumfries, and thence to the old Abbey of
Dundrennan, hard by the Solway, and her flight
from Langside marked the beginning of that lost
cause which had its tragic ending at Fotheringay.
A monument close to the infirmary marks the site
of the battlefield.
The surroundings of the infirmary are almost
rural, as the buildings are in close proximity to
the Queen's (or South Side) Park, one of the most
spacious and attractive of Glasgow's many pleasure-
grounds. Though at some distance from the indus-
trial districts on the south side of the river, the
infirmary, which is the only general hospital on the
south of the Clyde, is of the greatest service to the
large shipbuilding yards and other large industrial
concerns in Govan and on the South Side generally.
The infirmary, which was first opened in Feb-
ruary, 1890, with accommodation for 60 patients,
had an addition with other 60 beds erected in 1894,
,and in 1902 and 1906 further additions were made,
bringing the nominal total of beds to 260 (at which
it remains at present), though 300 patients are fre-
quently accommodated.
There are 13 wards of different sizes, four of which
108
are medical and one gynaecological, while the rest
are surgical; a few beds for eye, ear, throat, nose
and skin cases are allotted in the general wards.
The visiting staff consists of three surgeons, with
four assistant surgeons, and two physicians, with
four assistant physicians. There are also specialists
for the nose and throat, the ear, gynaecology, skin
diseases, and the eye, each, except the ear specialist,
having an assistant. The staff is completed by a
pathologist, and assistant pathologist, and a
radiologist.
During 1921 there were 4348 in-patients treated
in the infirmary, and at the dispensary, which now
comprises only nose and throat cases, there were
2227 attendances. Connected with the hospital,
but situated at some distance from it, in the densely
populated area immediately on the south side of the
river, is the outdoor department, known as the
Bellahouston dispensary, in Morrison Street, near
the River Clyde, and closely adjoining the harbour.
This dispensary is housed in a well-equipped and
modern building specially designed for the purposes
of a dispensary, and, though under the same
management as the infirmary, is worked by a
separate staff. This dispensary, lying, as it does,
in a thickly populated district near the river, is
largely taken advantage of, the total attendances for
1921 being 24,5GO.
At the infirmary itself there is a very excellent
clinical research laboratory, very similar to the one
at the Western Infirmary, both of these laboratories
owing their existence to the generosity of a well-
known shipowner of the city.
109
Like the Royal and "Western Infirmaries, the
Victoria Infirmary is fortunate in having attached
to it a convalescent home, which is situated at
Largs, on the Firth of Clyde, and has accommoda-
tion for some 25 to 30 patients.
The infirmary is supported entirely by voluntary
contributions, and is managed by a board of
Governors elected by the general body of con-
,tributors, with representation frorii certain public
bodies and six representatives of the working classes.
Eight wards have been named in acknowledgment
of large sums of money bequeathed, while 29 beds
and one cot are endowed.
The Victoria Infirmary is now taking its rightful
part in clinical teaching, which till recently had
formed but a small part of its activities, owing to
its distance from the University and from the extra-
mural schools, but with the ever-increasing numbers
of students the teaching resources of the infirmary
have been called into play, and very excellent they
have proved.
The beautiful situation of the infirmary, its
modern construction and equipment, and its his-
torical surroundings and associations make it well
worthy of a visit by the members of the British
Medical Association at this time.
THE ROYAL MATERNITY AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL.
The Glasgow Royal Maternity and Women's
Hospital, situated in Rottenrow, not far from the
Cathedral, with its 114 beds, is one of the largest,
as it is certainly one of the most modern and well-
equipped, maternity hospitals in the kingdom.
110
Founded originally in 1834, the hospital made a
modest beginning in the second flat and garrets of
the old Grammar School, in the Grammar School
Wynd, with a rental of 30 a year. The early
years of the institution reveal an almost constant
struggle against outbreaks of disease in the hospital
and the want of funds to carry out the work; but
about 1843-44 things began to mend, and with the
taking of a new and larger house in " an adjoining
land " (i.e., flat) the hospital became healthier, the
students more numerous, and the finances improved,
so that in 1860 a house at the corner of North Port-
land Street and Rottenrow was purchased as a new
hospital, and the building adapted for the purposes
of a hospital. There were 21 beds, but the average
space per patient was only 230 cubic feet, so it is
not matter for surprise that the hospital had several
times to be closed for outbreaks of septic disease;
but shortly after 1863 the hospital was thoroughly
cleaned and renovated, with most satisfactory
results, for we hear that in 1872, out of 323 indoor
cases, only one patient died. The building, how-
ever, in time proved unsatisfactory, so it was ulti-
mately pulled down, and in 1881 there was erected
on the same site the Maternity Hospital which was
in existence when the British Medical Association
last visited Glasgow, in 1888. This building still
stands, but the new hospital is situated a little
further west in Rottenrow, and in all respects con-
forms to the most modern ideas in hospital con-
struction.
Opened in 1908, it contains 19 wards, viz., 12
lying-in wards, three isolation wards, two ante-
Ill
natal wards, and two labour wards, the number of
beds in the hospital being 114, divided into 80
obstetric beds and 25 ante-natal beds.
In addition to six consulting obstetric physicians
and one consulting physician, there are six visiting
physicians, four assistant visiting physicians, one
extra assistant visiting physician, one pathologist,
and one physician at the gynaecological dispensary.
There is an outdoor department, from which
patients are attended at their own homes by district
nurses and students, and there are three outdoor
dispensaries, viz. (1) gynaecological, (2) ante-
natal, (3) post-natal.
As regards the number of patients, there were in
1921 3625 indoor patients (of whom 767 were ante-
natal), and 3477 outdoor, a total of 7102. For the
same year the dispensary attendances were gynae-
cological, 3098; ante-natal, 6019; and post-natal,.
4513.
An important auxiliary of the hospital is a
maternity and child welfare centre, consisting of a
complete indoor and outdoor ante-natal department
and infant consultation clinic.
Of recent years the research department of the
hospital has come into great prominence. By
arrangement with the Medical Research Council,
this department was opened by the directors of the
hospital towards the end of 1919, under the
directorship of Dr. A. M. Kennedy, now Professor
of Medicine in the University of Wales at Cardiff,
and under him and his successor excellent work
has been done in elucidating the causes of infant
mortality, especially as regards ante-natal con-
ditions.
112
The Royal Maternity and Women's Hospital
Any reference to the Eoyal Maternity Hospital
would be incomplete without mention of the im-
portant work done within its walls by the present
occupier of the Eegius Chair of Midwifery in the
University in making Csesarean section a prac-
tically useful obstetric operation. The name of
Murdoch Cameron will ever be honourably asso-
ciated with the development of this branch of
surgery.
The Eoyal Maternity Hospital is supported by
voluntary contributions, and, like the other large
hospitals, has workmen's representatives on its
board of directors.
THE EOYAL SAMARITAN HOSPITAL.
The Glasgow Eoyal Samaritan Hospital for
Women, pleasantly situated in Butterbiggins Eoad,
off Victoria Eoad, on the south side of the river,
not far from the Queen's Park, is exclusively
devoted to the diseases of women, and, with about
100 beds, it is one of the largest hospitals in the
kingdom devoting itself entirely to gynaecological
work.
It was established in 1886, and meets the needs
of the very large number of women of the working
classes whose gynaecological conditions call for
skilled surgical treatment, but for whom the
ordinary nursing home is beyond reach.
The surgeons, of whom there are four (with
assistants), are all gynaecological specialists, devot-
ing themselves entirely to that department of
surgery, and, as they are all expert operators, the
patients are advantageously placed for obtaining the
I 113
best advice and the highest technical skill for their
various ailments.
As the present hospital was built since the British
Medical Association visited Glasgow in 1888, it will
repay a visit by members interested in gynaeco-
logical work, for, in addition to its open and airy
situation, it is of modern construction, and was
specially erected for the class of work carried on in
it. The writer has not available statistics of the
operations performed in it, but can speak from per-
sonal knowledge of the very advanced and highly
skilled type of work done in the hospital.
A feature of recent years has been the admirable
facilities for post-graduate work offered by the
hospital, which have been widely taken advantage
of, not only by local medical men, but also by many
graduates from other countries.
ROYAL HOSPITAL FOR SICK CHILDREN.
The Royal Hospital for Sick Children, situated
near the University and Western Infirmary, on the
site of the old mansion-house of Torkhill, and
standing in the spacious grounds that at one time
surrounded the old mansion, is an institution of
which Glasgow has good reason to be proud, for it
is admittedly one of the finest hospitals for children
in existence, its design and equipment being of the
most modern type, while its situation on an open,
elevated, and spacious site, on an eminence which
slopes down to the Clyde on one side and towards
Kelvingrove Park on the other, is as nearly ideal
as any site in a large city is likely to be.
The hospital was originally founded in 1882, and
114
a
had its first home on the summit of the steep slope
known as Garnethill a fairly good site for the
treatment of children and the original building
having been specially designed for a hospital, the
facilities for treatment, so far as they went, were
admirable, and the out-patient department, on a
lower level to the north of Garnethill and within a
few hundred yards of the hospital itself, added
greatly to its usefulness, while a country branch at
Drumchapel (about six miles to the west of the
city) provided, and still provides, an excellent
convalescent home for the little patients after their
residence in the hospital.
The original hospital having become inadequate
to meet the ever-growing demand for accommoda*
tion, the present' spacious hospital was built at
Yorkhill, at a cost of over 150,000, and was
opened by the King and Queen in 1914, a few weeks
prior to the outbreak of the Great War.
It contains 12 wards most of which have side
wards attached with cot accommodation for almost
300 patients, one-third of the cots being for medical
cases, and two-thirds for surgical cases ; while there
are also an out-patient department (in addition to
the original outdoor department still carried on in
its original location near the (Ad hospital), an
X-ray department, a splint manufacturing depart-
ment, operating theatres, lecture rooms, separate
washing-house and laundry, &c.
The patients must all be under thirteen years of
age, and they come, not only from the Glasgow
district, but from all over the west side of Scotland,
from the extreme north and the far-distant western
islands to the extreme south.
115
The following figures give some idea of the work
done in 1921. There were treated in the wards of
the hospital 4749 children, of whom 1220 were
medical and 3529 surgical; 1679 were under one
year, and 1231 were over one and under three years
of age. The subsequent attendances of these
patients numbered 5672.
The out-patients seen at the hospital were 2162,
while at the old dispensary in the centre of the city,
near the old hospital, there were 14,769 patients
seen, 6889 being medical and 7880 surgical, the
total attendances coming to 44,124. In the wards
of the country branch 339 patients were treated.
The X-rays were used in 4555 cases; 256 post-
mortem examinations were made ; and 1352 patho-
logical reports were prepared and submitted to the
physicians and surgeons. Students to the number
of 240 attended the lectures and cliniques in the
hospital.
The visiting staff consists of one physician, with
four assistants; two surgeons, with six assistants;
and three visiting specialists. The resident staff
comprises a medical superintendent, two resident
physicians, two resident surgeons, and a medical
officer for the outdoor department at the hospital.
At the dispensary near the old hospital the staff
consists of a resident medical officer, ten visiting
physicians, nine visiting surgeons, and four visiting
specialists. At the hospital there are a matron, an
assistant matron, 11 sisters, and 89 nurses and
probationers.
The hospital is maintained by voluntary sub-
scriptions and donations ; the expenditure during
1921 was somewhat over 34,000.
116
Dr. William Mackenzie
During the war part of the hospital was used as
a military hospital for wounded and sick officers,
many of whom were treated there.
THE EYE INFIRMARY.
As regards hospitals for diseases of the eye, the
position has altered somewhat since 1888 r when
there were two institutions, the Eye Infirmary in
Berkeley Street and the Glasgow Ophthalmic Insti-
tution in West Regent Street, existing as inde-
pendent bodies in friendly rivalry in their efforts
on behalf of the suffering poor. Since then the
Glasgow Ophthalmic Institution has been absorbed
by the Royal Infirmary, and now forms the
ophthalmic department of that hospital, though the
work is still carried on in the original building in
West Regent Street under a staff which, though
part of the Royal Infirmary staff, is in effect a
separate staff. As the Victoria Infirmary has also
an ophthalmic department, the facilities for treat-
ment of diseases of the eye are considerably greater
than they were in 1888.
The Glasgow Eye Infirmary was founded in 1824,
and is to be considered the premier institution of
its kind in the city. It still maintains the prestige
gained from having as one of its original surgeons
William M'Kenzie, a man of European repute,
whose book on " Diseases of the Eye " was the
leading work in its time on that subject. The Eye
Infirmary has, of course, by alterations and addi-
tions as well as by modern appliances, been kept
well up to the requirements of a large modern
ophthalmic hospital, and both the present hospital
117
in Berkeley Street and the branch at Charlotte
Street (rebuilt since 1888) have their accommoda-
tion taxed to the uttermost, as in a city such as this,
where shipbuilding and engineering are staple
industries, injuries to the eye are exceedingly
common. The Eye Infirmary, situated as it is
comparatively near the University, always attracted
a considerable number of students, even before
diseases of the eye formed a compulsory part of the
medical curriculum, and, now that the eye is a
compulsory subject, it does so still in an even
greater degree, but with the Royal Infirmary and
and its ophthalmic department (in West Regent
Street) now forming an integral part of the Uni-
versity, considerable numbers of students also
attend the Ophthalmic Institution for their clinical
instruction.
Space does not permit of further details of these
institutions, but some idea of the amount of work
done may be gathered when it is mentioned that in
the Royal Infirmary ophthalmic department (the
Ophthalmic Institution) there were in 1921 treated
in the wards 919 in-patients, while 13,626 attended
the dispensary as out-patients, a total of 14,545,
with a total attendance record at the dispensary of
35,561.
ROYAL CANCER HOSPITAL.
The Glasgow Royal Cancer Hospital is situated on
the crest of the eminence known as Garnethill, in
an airy and quiet position not far from Charing
Cross, the main entrance being from Hill Street.
This hospital was not in existence at the last visit
of the British Medical Association in 1888, but was
118
founded shortly thereafter, viz., in 1890, and was
rebuilt and completed during the year 1910.
It contains four large wards and eight small
wards, while the staff consists of two chief surgeons,
two assistant surgeons, a medical electrician, and a
pathologist.
There are 50 beds in the hospital, special cases
being accommodated in side wards.
The number of patients treated in 1921 was 245,
these, of course, being all indoor cases, as there is
no outdoor department in connection with this
hospital.
The hospital is supported voluntarily, by sub-
scriptions, donations, and legacies, and there are
five beds endowed specifically.
The directors and staff have always taken a keen
and intelligent interest in research into the causes
and cure of cancer, but have always preserved a
judicial attitude, and have not allowed themselves
to be carried away by every new " cure " for this
dread disease, so that the methods of treatment in
the hospital are eminently sound and scientific, and
calculated, so far as our present knowledge goes, to
afford the utmost degree of relief and comfort to
those suffering from this dire malady.
HOSPITAL FOE, WOMEN.
The Glasgow Hospital for Women, founded in
1877, was situated in Elmbank Crescent when the
British Medical Association last visited Glasgow,
but on 10th March, 1921, new hospital buildings
were opened in Burnbank Terrace, off Great
Western Eoad. The hospital has since its inception
119
been supported by voluntary subscriptions, and that
its services are appreciated by the public is proved
by the fact that the treasurer's statement at the
last annual meeting showed that the hospital had
a respectable balance at its credit, a rather rare
occurrence in voluntary hospitals in these hard
times.
Of the board of directors, about one-half are
ladies, and there is a strong ladies' auxiliary.
The staff consists of an honorary consulting
physician and an honorary consulting surgeon, two
visiting surgeons and two visiting physicians, while
a matron resides in and has charge of the hospital.
During the year ending 30th June, 1921, there
were treated in the hospital as indoor patients 335
cases, while the outdoor consultations, including
indoor treatments without operations, numbered
4965. There were 324 operations during the year.
The activities of the hospital are not confined to
Glasgow, patients coming from other Scottish dis-
tricts at considerable distances, the list of localities
from which patients come showing places as far
apart as Rothesay and Crieff.
While the hospital has done much excellent work
in the past among a class for whom nursing homes
are entirely out of reach, its activities will probably
be greatly extended owing to the improved facilities
afforded by the new buildings.
WOMEN'S PRIVATE HOSPITAL.
The Glasgow Women's Private Hospital, situated
at 11 Lynedoch Place, in an excellent residential
quarter, was opened in April, 1903, and affords
120
means of treatment to patients who desire to be
attended by doctors of their own sex, for the hos-
pital is staffed by women doctors. The hospital has
only been in its present quarters since 1915, having
previously been in smaller premises in West Cum-
berland Street, which accommodated only eight
patients, whereas the present hospital has room for
14, in two wards of five beds each (one medical and
one surgical), and four private rooms, one of which
is a maternity room. Even this extended accom-
modation is already proving too small, showing that
the hospital undoubtedly meets a want.
During last year 180 indoor patients were treated,
of whom 140 were surgical, 31 medical, and 9
maternity.
The patients pay a modified fee, which covers
half the expenditure, the remainder being defrayed
by voluntary subscriptions and donations. The
hospital is governed by a committee of ladies.
There is no outdoor department connected with this
hospital.
THE LOCK HOSPITAL.
The Glasgow Lock Hospital, situated at No. 41
Eottenrow a little to the east of the Royal
Maternity Hospital was founded in 1805, and is,
with one exception, the oldest in this country for
the treatment of venereal diseases. It was started
with 11 beds in a house farther west than its present
site, and the number of beds was increased to 20
in 1840. The present building was opened in 1846,
but there have been many additions and improve-
ments at several subsequent dates, the latest being
as recently as 1920. There are eight wards, consist-
121
ing of children's ward, maternity ward (now being
completed), and six ordinary wards for venereal
disease cases. There are 63 beds and 23 cots.
There are three medical officers, viz., a chief and
two assistants.
During last year there were 541 in-patients
(including 166 children and 40 maternity cases),
while there were 1205 out-patients, including 280
children, the total attendances numbering 20,499.
The out-patient work of the hospital is now fifteen
times as great as it was in 1914, necessitating very
much increased accommodation, which has been
found in the Central Dispensary buildings at the
corner of Portland Street and Richmond Street, in
comparatively close proximity to the hospital.
These buildings are modern and well-equipped,
having been specially designed for the work cf the
Central Dispensary, which, under this name, carries
on the work and traditions of the old dispensary
connected with Anderson's (Medical) College, which
was situated in this quarter of the city prior to its
removal to its present site near the gate of the
Western Infirmary. In part of the Central Dis-
pensary buildings the Lock Hospital has found an
admirable home for its large and rapidly increasing
outdoor department.
The hospital is supported by voluntary contribu-
tions (subscriptions and donations), income from
investments, and more recently by grants through
the local authority under the venereal diseases
scheme. It is managed by directors appointed by
the qualified contributors and representatives of
certain public bodies in Glasgow, and it is now a
recognised teaching centre for venereal diseases.
122
EAR, NOSE, AND THROAT HOSPITAL.
The Glasgow Hospital for Diseases of the Ear,
Nose, and Throat is as yet still situated in the
building at 28 Elmbank Crescent which was occu-
pied by the Glasgow Ear Hospital when the British
Medical Association visited Glasgow in 1888. Since
then the adjoining house (No. 27) has been taken
in, and the scope of the hospital's activities
increased by diseases of the nose and throat being
included in its work ; but with the constantly
increasing numbers of patients attending the hos-
pital, the present accommodation has become totally
inadequate, and a new hospital is in immediate
contemplation. An excellent site in St. Vincent
Street, near the foot of Elmbank Street, has been
secured, and steps are being taken to form an
influential committee of those interested in the new
scheme. In the course of the current year it is
intended to issue a public appeal for funds, and
the hospital has been fortunate in securing Lord
Weir of Eastwood to act as chairman of the com-
mittee for raising funds for the new hospital. How
urgent the need for a new hospital is is shown by
the fact that, as compared with 1916, the number
of new patients dealt with in 1921 had increased by
2432, while the operations performed under general
anaesthesia showed an increase of 640, and those
under local anaesthesia of 587. The war has also
left its mark on the hospital, for during the past
twenty months alone war pensioners have made 2227
visits to the dispensary. The need for a new hospital
is thus patent, and the directors hope that the
response to the public appeal they are about to issue
123
will be so liberal that they may be able to make
arrangements for building within the next two
years, what is aimed at being a hospital with a
minimum of 40 beds, the estimated cost of which
will be about 35,000, the present hospital having
only 15 beds for indoor cases.
Even with its present inadequate accommodation,
the hospital does a very large amount of excellent
work. Of new patients, 6008 (3295 males and 2713
females) were treated during the year, an increase
of 500 over the previous year. As many of these
were seen more than once, 20,339 attendances or
over 70 daily for the 290 days the dispensary was
open were recorded for the year ; 408 patients were
admitted as indoor ; 1454 operations were performed
under general anaesthesia, including chloroform
and ether 129 times, chloride of ethyl 1325 times,
while in .addition to these local anaesthesia was
employed in 1147 cases.
The visiting staff consists of two visiting surgeons
(one of whom is senior surgeon), two assistant sur-
geons, and two extra assistant surgeons, while there
are also an anaesthetist, a matron, and a dispenser.
Between 50 and 60 students attend the hospital
for practical instruction in diseases of the ear, nose,
and throat; and, in addition to this, two post-
graduate courses one in the spring and one in the
autumn are conducted by members of the staff,
with good attendances at them.
A feature of the annual report of this hospital
is a carefully prepared enumeration in tabular form
of all the diseases treated at the hospital, the
various headings showing the great variety of cases
124
seen in the different departments, while the num-
bers of patients treated (both old and new cases),
with the attendances in the various months of the
year, are also detailed. These tables show that in
the indoor department for diseases of the ear the
Radical Mastoid operation was performed 42 times,
and Schwartze's operation for Mastoid empyema 18
times, in the course of the year.
The dispensary or outdoor department is open
daily in the hospital building, and from it such
cases as require indoor treatment are sent into the
wards.
ELDER COTTAGE HOSPITAL.
The Elder Cottage Hospital, situated in Govan,
where so much of the shipbuilding for which
Glasgow is famous is carried on, was founded in
1903 by the late Mrs. Elder, LL.D., the widow of
the distinguished shipbuilder who founded the
world-renowned firm of John Elder & Co., which
still maintains its high repute as the Fairfield Ship-
building and Engineering Company, from whose
yard many of the most fambus ships both naval
and mercantile of the world have been turned out.
The hospital consists of two large and four small
wards, comprising in all 28 beds and four cots. Of
these, 16 beds and two cots are surgical, while 12
beds and two cots are medical. In addition, there
is an operating theatre and an out-patient electrical
and X-ray department.
The staff consists of a visiting physician, a visit-
ing surgeon and assistant surgeon, as well as an
anaesthetist and a radiographer.
The nursing staff comprises a matron, three
sisters, two staff nurses, and five pupil nurses.
125
The number of patients treated in 1921 was 863,
made up as follows, viz. : Medical in-patients,
121 ; surgical in-patients, 422 ; X-ray and electrical
out-patients, 320.
The hospital is partially endowed from Mrs.
Elder's Trust, but is also kept up by voluntary
subscriptions from shipyard workers and others.
THE MUNICIPAL HOSPITALS.
Prior to 1865 infectious diseases were treated in the
wards of the various poorhouses, the Glasgow Royal
Infirmary, and occasionally temporary hospitals
were erected to meet emergencies as they occurred.
The first municipal fever hospital in the city was
opened in 1865, on a site in Kennedy Street, off
Parliamentary Road, and a second at Belvidere, on
the eastern boundary of the city, in 1870. Fevers
ceased to be treated in parish hospitals in 1872, and
in the Royal Infirmary in 1875, since when the
local authority has been wholly responsible for the
provision of accommodation for the treatment of
infectious diseases.
The following table shows the hospital accom-
modation for infectious diseases as at various dates
since 1865, and the number of beds per 1000 of the
population. Bed accommodation is calculated on
an allowance of 2000 cubic feet for adults, but as
something like 75 per cent, of the patients treated
are under five years of age, a much larger number
can be accommodated than is indicated by the total
number of beds. During the year 1921 the aggre-
gate number of patients admitted to the fever
hospitals was 10,131.
126
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88
Besides making provision for fevers and the other
diseases included in the zymotic group, the local
authority have also made provision, particularly at
Ruchill, Knightswood, and Eobroyston Hospitals,
127
for accommodating patients suffering from tuber-
culosis in all its forms, while a considerable number
of patients suffering from this disease are also
treated at the expense of the local authority in insti-
tutions not under their control. The following
summary table gives particulars of the number of
beds available for the treatment of tuberculosis :
INSTITUTIONAL ACCOMMODATION FOR PATIENTS
SUFFERING FROM TUBERCULOSIS.
(1) SANATORIA
Local Authority Males.
Bellefield,
Others
Ochil Hills, 45
Bridge-of-Weir, 30
Doune Road Hospital, Dun
blane, ... ... .. 7
Hairmyres, ... ... .. 6
Total Beds in Sanatoria, 88
(2) HOSPITALS
Local Authority
Ruchill,
Knightswood,
Shieldhall,
Robroyston,
,, (Auxiliary Hospital),
Others
Darnley
Lanfine Home,
Strathblane Children's
Home,
Cripples' Hospital and
College, Alton, ...
Total Beds in Hospitals,
(3) POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS
Total Institutional Accommodation,
128
136
80
24
168
34
Females.
52
45
4
101
136
280
66
Total.
52
45
75
11
6
189
272
80
24
448
100
16 aver. Haver.
5 5
3 3
468 507
10
25 aver.
10
6
975
160 aver. 80 aver. 240 aver.
As regards the 240 beds in poor law institutions,
it may be explained that these patients are known
as " sanitary boarders," the cost of whose treatment
is met by the local authority.
The Robroyston Auxiliary Hospital has just been
opened. Primarily it is intended for the treatment
of smallpox, but the Scottish Board of Health have
authorised its use for the treatment of tuberculous
cases during the absence of smallpox, and meantime
the intention is to transfer convalescent patients
there who have already been treated in the wards
of the main hospital at Robroyston.
In the following table there is also given a sum-
mary of the numbers of the medical, nursing, &c.,
staffs associated with the various Corporation
institutions :
Hospitals.
Resident
Staff.
Cleaning
Total.
Medical.
Nursing, and Kitchen.
Others.
1.
Belvidere, - 6
167
115
70
358
2.
Ruchill, -
7
255
172
68
502
3.
Shieldhall,
1
30
18
10
61
4.
Knightswood,
1
23
20
6
50
5.
Uobroyston,
5
94
78
29
206
6.
Bellfield, - 1
8
11
8
28
Totals, - 21 577 414 193 1205
In addition, there are also an honorary consulting
surgeon and three consulting surgeons, of whom one
is also visiting surgeon for tuberculosis; a part-
time radiologist for tuberculosis, and part-time
specialist for the venereal diseases and trachoma
schemes.
GLASGOW PARISH COUNCIL AND DISTRICT
BOARD OF CONTROL.
The parish of Glasgow, which combined in 1898
K 129
the former Barony and city of Glasgow parishes, is,
in consequence, the most populous in Scotland, the
1921 census showing it to have 596,085 inhabitants.
The Parish Council controls the administration
of one large general hospital, two district hospitals,
a poorhouse, two seaside homes for adults and young
persons respectively, besides other two homes at the
coast temporarily occupied by children.
The Parish Council is also constituted the District
Board of Control within the same area, for the care
and treatment of patients suffering from mental
troubles. For cases of insanity the District Board
has two large and fully equipped mental hospitals,
and for mentally deficient persons, practically the
only institution in Scotland specially erected for the
purpose.
In addition to the treatment of the indoor poor
of the parish, including the boarding of children
and harmless lunatics in private dwellings all over
the country, the Parish Council has a roll of over
19,000 adults and their dependents chargeable
throughout the year.
The outdoor poor of the parish are medically
looked after by a staff of twenty district medical
officers, who are also private practitioners.
In 1921, for the first time in the history of the
Scottish poor law, Parish Councils had to assist
financially the unemployed, and it is estimated that
up till the close of the financial year (May, 1922)
the Glasgow Parish Council will have expended on
this item alone 180,000.
The total amount expended in ordinary poor law
relief and lunacy within the parish is roughly
1,000,000 sterling for the past year.
130
1
With these few facts regarding the general
administration of the parish, the following notes
applicable to each separate institution may be useful
and interesting :
1. NORTHERN GENERAL HOSPITAL, SPRINGBURN,
GLASGOW.
This is the largest and most up-to-date poor law
institution in Scotland. It was held available for
military purposes, and on the outbreak of the war
in 1914 it was hurriedly vacated of ordinary
patients and occupied throughout the war as two
distinct military hospitals, being visited not only
by the King, the Duke of Connaught, and other
Royalties at various periods, but also by many dis-
tinguished military and other representatives from
time to time.
Erected on an ideal site on the northern boundary
of the city, its erection was completed in 1902, when
patients were first admitted.
The institution and grounds extend to 54 acres,
and at present has accommodation for nearly 2000
patients, including children, being divided into
wards in separate blocks for medical, surgical,
infirm, and children's departments under a medical
superintendent, with visiting physician, surgeon,
dentist, oculist, and pathologist, and four resident
medical officers.
The total cost of land and buildings opened in
1902 has been upwards of 500,000.
2. EASTERN DISTRICT HOSPITAL, 253 DUKE STREET,
GLASGOW.
This hospital was erected and opened for the
131
reception of 380 patients in 1904. It is intended
primarily for acute and curable cases, both medical
and surgical.
Its administration under the Parish Council is
conducted by a medical superintendent, a visiting
physician and surgeon, and a resident staff. A
special feature of this hospital is its wards for
the treatment of incipient mental diseases. These
wards are unique in Scotland, and serve the purpose
of preventing many patients being sent to asyluma
and stigmatised as lunatics.
3. WESTERN DISTRICT HOSPITAL, OAKBANK, FOSSIL.
EOAD, GLASGOW.
With the exception of the accommodation for
mental cases, this hospital, also opened in 1904 for
360 patients, is utilised in the same way as the
Eastern District Hospital, under similar supervision.
4. BARNHILL POORHOUSE, PETERSHILL EOAD,
SPRINGBURN, GLASGOW.
Prior to the erection of the foregoing hospitals,
Barnhill was the sole institution of the former
Barony parish, along with the old City Parish Poor-
house, for the indoor treatment of all sane poor.
The latter was sold on the amalgamation of the twa
parishes, and Barnhill is now utilised chiefly for
infirm patients and recurring sick.
It was originally built after the passing of the
Poor Law (Scotland) Act, 1845, and was greatly
extended in 1901-2. It has accommodation for
2000 patients or thereby, the medical administration
being under visiting and resident medical officers,
with a lady superintendent and trained nurses.
132
5. GLASGOW DISTRICT ASYLUM, WOODILEE, LENZIE.
Woodilee is one of the largest mental hospitals,
and, with its succursal establishments, accommo-
dates in all 1292 patients. It was erected originally
in 1875 for 400 cases, and was greatly extended at
different times, but withal the accommodation is
insufficient to meet present-day requirements. The
estate consists of 765 acres, giving scope for open-
air curative treatment on the farms and grounds.
6. GLASGOW DISTRICT ASYLUM, GARTLOCH,
GARTCOSH.
This asylum is more recent in date than Woodilee,
having been opened in 1895. The estate extends to
440 acres, and affords also the requisite facilities for
open-air treatment of the patients. The existing
accommodation, taxed to the utmost, provides for
812 beds.
7. INSTITUTION FOR MENTAL DEFECTIVES,
STONEYETTS, CIIRYSTON.
As indicated in the general remarks above, this
institution is practically the only one erected for
the treatment of mental defectives under the Mental
Deficiency (Scotland) Act, 1913. It has accom-
modation for 345 patients, and is built on the lands
of Woodilee Asylum, about two miles therefrom.
THE SOUTHERN GENERAL HOSPITAL.
The Southern General Hospital or, as it was
known till January of this year, the Govan Poor-
house and Hospital is situated at Merryflats, on
the south side of the river, at the extreme west end
133
of the district of Govan, which was till compara-
tively recently a separate burgh, with its own
Provost and magistrates, but now forms an integral
part of " Greater Glasgow." The hospital wa&
founded shortly after the Poor Law (Scotland) Act
of 1845 came into force, and was first housed in an
old mill in Dale Street, Tradeston. In 1853 the
hospital was removed to buildings on the west side
of Eglinton Street, which had been erected in 1821,
and used as a cavalry barracks for the Glasgow
district.
The present buildings were erected in 1872. The
first addition to the hospital containing 117 beds
was opened in 1899. The second addition con-
taining 116 beds was opened in 1908. A separate
children's block was erected in 1903, a small block
for cases of incipient insanity was erected in 1905,
while in 1907 a nurses' home was opened. The
latest addition a block containing 272 beds was
opened in 1909, and in January, 1922, the name was
changed as indicated above.
The total number of wards in the hospital is 78,
the medical staff consisting of a medical superin-
tendent and three assistant medical officers , while
there is also a large nursing staff.
The total number of beds in the hospital is 1987,
of which 404 are medical, 100 surgical, 767 infirm
and convalescent, 200 chronic mental cases, 81
venereal, skin, and ulcer; 48 epileptic, while the
remainder are for children, maternity, mental defec-
tives, and incipient insanity.
The number of patients treated annually is 6050.
There is a convalescent home for children, con-
134
taining 25 beds, at Stewarthall, in the Island of
Bute.
The hospital is rate-aided, and is under the
management of Govan Parish Council, representing
a population of 372,000 of the city of Glasgow, of
which Govan now forms a part.
ROYAL MENTAL HOSPITAL.
The Glasgow Royal Mental Hospital, or, as it is
more familiarly known to the inhabitants of
Glasgow, Gartnavel Royal Asylum, is situated in
the extreme western district of the city, having its
main entrance from Great Western Road, in a part
of the city which till recently was entirely in the
country, and even yet is comparatively open and
unbuilt on, at least as regards streets of tenements,
though there are several fine residences in the im-
mediate vicinity of the asylum grounds.
The hospital or, as it was then known, the
asylum was founded in 1810, largely owing to the
philanthropic exertions of Robert M'Nair, Esq.,
of Belvidere, and originally stood in what is now
the heart of the city, near Parliamentary Road, on
a site now occupied by the Caledonian Railway
Company as a goods station. In 1841 the need for
more and better accommodation had become urgent,
a new site three miles from the centre of the city
was selected, the original buildings were disposed
of to the directors of the Town's Hospital, and the
present Royal Asylum or Mental Hospital was
erected on the lands of Gartnavel, in the western
suburbs of Glasgow, aixd opened in 1843. The
hospital is built in the Tudor Gothic style, and
135
stands in an elevated position in the centre of
beautifully wooded pleasure-grounds which, with
the gardens, extend to 66 acres. When erected,
the hospital was well in advance of its time, and
though the construction is perhaps more institu-
tional and concentrated than would be adopted now,
numerous internal alterations and several additions
have kept the building well up to the modern
requirements of a mental hospital.
It accommodates approximately 500 patients, who
pay rates of board varying from 58 to 600 and
upwards per annum.
The hospital consists of two main divisions,
known as the East House and the West House
respectively, and in the grounds there has been
erected, comparatively recently, a beautiful little
chapel, where services for the patients are held by
the chaplain to the hospital, while the grounds also
allow of ample opportunities for outdoor exercise
and recreation for the patients a golf course, tennis
courts, croquet lawn, and a curling pond all proving
useful adjuncts to the usual hospital treatment.
The laboratory of the Western Asylums' Research
Institute is situated within the hospital grounds,
and in it much useful research has been done in the
etiology and results of mental disease.
The physician superintendent is the University
Lecturer in Psychological Medicine, and the hos-
pital is available for clinical instruction, large
numbers of students attending the classes, which
form a part of the University curriculum. Of
recent years post-graduate courses have also been
given.
136
3
'Si
The average number of patients treated annually
ior the last four years is 492.
The hospital is now an entirely private one for
paying patients.
The treatment in the hospital has always been of
the most humane and enlightened kind, so that the
institution has gained in an unusual degree the
confidence of the public in the West of Scotland,
and a considerable proportion of the patients are
those who have gone there as voluntary patients,
recognising that in such an institution their chances
of recovery are greatly increased.
PRINCESS LOUISE SCOTTISH HOSPITAL FOR LIMBLESS
AND DISABLED SAILORS AND SOLDIERS.
Like all other parts of this country, Glasgow has
its aftermath of the war, in the shape of a pitiable
legacy of brave men maimed, disabled, and broken
in the long-drawn-out struggle for freedom and for
the right, but for these maimed heroes a veritable
home of healing and of hope is to be found in the
Princess Louise Scottish Hospital for Limbless and
Disabled Sailors and Soldiers at Erskine, on the
banks of the Clyde, about ten miles down the river
from the city, and not far from tfye village of
Bishopton, on the main Caledonian Railway line
between Glasgow and Greenock.
The site of the hospital is ideal, as it is housed in
Erskine House, a stately mansion in extensive
grounds sloping down to the left bank of the Clyde,
which previously was the residence of Lord Blantyre,
and which is on a scale and of a design well fitting
it for a residence for the nobility.
137
Thanks largely to the generosity of Sir John Reid,
a highly esteemed citizen who now occupies the
ancient and honourable position of Deacon-Convener
of the Trades House of Glasgow, the mansion was
acquired for the noble purpose it now fulfils. It
was opened in 1916, and provides an institution in
Scotland devoted to the needs of the limbless and
disabled.
It first serves the purpose of a preparatory hospital
for the rearrangement and readjustment of stumps
and all the surgical work attendant thereon.
Secondly, it provides for the manufacture and
fitting of artificial limbs and appliances, and teaches
the men the full and proper use of these as appli-
cable to their future vocations.
Thirdly, the men are taught to earn their liveli-
hood by being trained in trades suitable to the
degree of their disablement. Fourthly, limbs dis-
abled through war injuries or from lesions arising
therefrom are, so far as possible, rectified and
restored to function.
The hospital also provides a workshop and home
with hospital facilities for the severely injured men
who cannot fight their way in the rough-and-tumble
of life.
In furtherance of the above objects, workshops for
the manufacture of artificial limbs and provisional
limbs peg-legs were provided, in which over
10,000 limbs have already been made and repaired.
Workshops have also been set up for training the
disabled soldiers and sailors in shoemaking,
basketry, tailoring, hairdressing, cabinetmaking
including upholstery and french polishing saddlery
138
and leather goods, agriculture including garden-
ing, pig, poultry, and bee keeping, &c. while the
making of the necessary appliances for these various
occupations has also been a part of the work. These
workshops have been recognised as a Government
training centre for these various trades.
Besides the 110 men undergoing training at
present, 126 men have already completed their
training in the various industries indicated above,
and are now plying their trades in all parts of the
country including the Highlands and Islands and
also far beyond it, for an Erskine-trained man is
now carrying on a successful shoemaking trade in
the far-distant Falkland Islands.
There is accommodation for 400 men, but half of
these beds are in temporary premises. There is a
well-equipped operating theatre and X-ray room.
The cooking is done by electricity, and the kitchen
arrangements are on the most up-to-date lines.
The surgical and medical work of the hospital ha&
been done since its inception by an honorary staff,
Drs. James A. Adams, P. Paterson, J. H. Pringile,
and J. A. C. Macewen undertaking the surgical
work, while Dr. M'Gregor-Kobertson, as physician,
does the medical work.
The nature of the work done in Erskine Hospital,
making good in large part as it does the wastage of
war, and enabling the heroic but maimed defenders
of our country to make with confidence a new start
in life has given the hospital a peculiarly intimate
place in the affection of the citizens of Glasgow,
who have taken it to their hearts, and regard with
pride the beneficent work accomplished within its
139
walls. None has taken a greater interest in the
hospital or worked harder for it than the esteemed
President of the Association, Sir William Macewen,
to whose unwearied efforts in its behalf the hospital
and all interested in it owe a deep debt of gratitude.
Sir William has been the moving spirit and the
master mind throughout the career of the hospital,
and the esteem the hospital enjoys and the excellent
work accomplished in it are largely due to his tire-
less energy and enthusiasm.
Probably no medical institution in or around
Glasgow will more interest the members of the
British Medical Association than this beautifully
situated and admirably equipped hospital, whose
inmates, limbless many of them and maimed all,
carry on the splendid tradition of cheerfulness in
adversity and pluck against all odds that in the late
war made the British sailor or soldier the wonder
of the world.
NURSIXG HOMES IN GLASGOW.
Any notice, however imperfect, of the medical
institutions of Glasgow would be incomplete without
a reference to the very numerous and well-equipped
private nursing homes. As in other cities, these
homes are generally the private property of ladies
who are trained nurses, and who have gathered
around them adequate and efficient staffs. These
homes have been established in private houses which
have been altered to suit their new purposes. Many
of the large terrace mansion-houses of the West End
of Glasgow have been acquired, and, generally
speaking, have fulfilled the purpose of a private
140
hospital admirably. All the nursing homes have
completely equipped operating theatres, and the
surgeons of Glasgow carry out their private work
with perfect confidence in the efficiency of the nurs-
ing and in the completeness of the aseptic technique.
The first home to be established was the M'Alpin
Home. Miss M'Alpin very early recognised that
there was no institution suitable for the non-hospital
class, and in 1874 she founded the home for the
training of nurses, having acquired a private house
in Renfrew Street one of the backwaters of
Glasgow, but very near the main thoroughfares. In
1908 a new building was erected, and, although the
plan is incomplete, the portion which has been con-
structed, comprising, as it does, an excellent series
of private rooms, each with a small balcony and
southern exposure, and a beautiful operating
theatre with roof light from the north provides in
itself a private hospital of modern type. The
M'Alpin Home is managed by a board of directors,
and is not run for profit. Any surplus accruing is
used for the building extension fund. It is the
largest establishment of its kind in Glasgow, and
can accommodate 50 patients.
Glasgow is much in need of a hospital, similar
to those established in Birmingham and in Bristol,
where patients may be accommodated and treated
for a moderate inclusive fee, and it is hoped that
in the near future some such establishment will be
erected.
Space does not permit of reference to many other
medical institutions in or near the city, such as the
Blind Asylum, the Dental Hospital and School, or
141
the excellent Convalescent Homes at Dunoon,
Kilmun, and Lenzie; but enough has been said in
the foregoing pages to indicate that Glasgow is not
unmindful of the needs of her citizens in the time
of their sickness, and that in her dealings with her
poorer sons and daughters she has taken to heart,
in all humbleness, but also in all sincerity, the say-
ing of the Great Healer, " Inasmuch as ye have
done it unto one of the least of these my brethren,
ye have done it unto me."
CORPORATION BACTERIOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT !Ni:w
LABORATORIES.
THE rapid advance of bacteriological science and
its practical applications in the diagnosis, preven-
tion and treatment of disease have necessitated the
provision of additional facilities to cope with the
steadily increasing volume of routine work and
research. A suite of laboratories with accessories
has accordingly been erected (and is in course of
completion) on the top floor of the Municipal Build-
ings Extension, with entrance by Cochrane Street
and access through the Sanitary Chambers from
Montrose Street. The new building has a floor area
of about 4000 square feet, and accommodates five
laboratories, an incubating room, a centrifuge room,
a room for the preparation of media, a clinical room,
a room for photography, an office, and a library. A
biological laboratory (in course of construction)
occupies a detached position on the same level.
The inception of a municipal laboratory for bac-
teriology dates from 1895, when the building known
as the Sanitary Chambers was being constructed for
142
LASGOW MUNICIPAL BUILDINGS EXTENSION
CORPORATIONS
BACTERIOLOGICAL:
DEPARTMENT!!
PLAN OF FOURTH
FLOOR.
2+2 KtST CtO.3t ST
GLASGOW i 1 - hM I9I2
the accommodation of the Public Health Depart-
ment. A room in the new building was equipped
as a laboratory, and was inaugurated in 1899, on" the
appointment of a whole-time bacteriologist. Every
medical practitioner within the city was invited to
avail himself of the resources of the laboratory for
the bacteriological diagnosis of doubtful cases of
infectious disease, and suitable equipments were
supplied for the safe and speedy transmission of
pathological specimens to the laboratory by post or
messenger. Facilities for carrying out the bio-
logical tests necessarily associated with bacterio-
logical diagnosis were provided by erecting an
animal house in the courtyard of the Sanitary
Chambers.
The diagnostic work for medical practitioners has
speedily increased year by year, and, in addition, a
large amount of diagnostic and research work for
the Public Health Department has arisen from time
to time in connection with tuberculosis, diphtheria
and enteric fever; plague, chdlera, dysentery,
malaria, cerebro-spinal fever, and encephalitis;
anthrax, glanders, and rabies ; venereal diseases ;
diphtheria, cerebro-spinal fever and enteric fever
contacts ; milk supplies ; food poisoning.
The laboratory is also at the service of other Cor-
poration Departments engaged in work on which
bacteriology has an important practical bearing.
Thus the water supplies are systematically examined
to determine their bacterial content and their
freedom from dangerous pollution. Similarly, the
water of the swimming ponds in the public baths is
under regular observation.
143
During 1921 the specimens received for examina-
tion numbered 26,324, distributed as follows:
Medical practitioners, 18,038 : medical officer of
health, 6226; hospitals, 891; veterinary surgeon,
981 ; Baths Department, 68 ; and Water Department,
120.
144
The Old Royal Infirmary, 179-2-1912
GLASGOW ROYAL INFIRMARY
THE BIRTHPLACE OF ANTISEPTIC
SURGERY.
A KIRKYARD ECLOGUE.
By the Late WILLIAM FINDLAY, M.D.
("GEORGE UMBER.")
Near by the auld Cathedral gray,
'Tween ebon nicht and screigh o' day,
I dreamt that I did lanely stray
'Mang kirkyard stanes,
Whilk everywhere aroun' me lay
'Boon deid folks' banes.
An' as I sauntered up an' doun,
About me glow'rin' idly roun'
Whare Kentigern first laid the foun'
0' 's mission station,
That now's become the second town
O' th' British nation,
I thought me on the aulden times,
When monks to the rude steeple's chimes
Awoke to chant their uncouth rhymes,
An' tell their beads,
An' lead the way to sp'ritual climes,
By holy deeds ;
When Clear the Molendinar sang
Its siller saughs an' birks amang,
L 145
An' trouts they lowpit a' day lang,
Wi' crimson spots ;
An' bush an' tree wi' music rang
Frae feathered throats ;
When Scottish firs, frae tap to tae,
O'erhung the stey Necrop'lis brae ;
An' heard was by ilk friar gray,
In 's midnight cell,
The storm amid their branches play,
Baith fierce an' fell ;
When owre foment the house o' pray'r,
Wi' stately an' med'seval air,
There stood the Bishop's Castle fair,
An' garden fine,
Whare lords an' leddies gossip'd rare,
An' walked langsyne.
Here something wav'rin' 'boon my heid,
Its cloak-like wings did wide outspread,
Syne zig-zag whuml't heels owre heid,
Bicht owre my shouther,
That turned my bluid as cauld as lead,
An' me a' through 'ther.
I scratched my touzled tap o' tow,
Dighted the cauld sweat aff my brow,
An' leukin' roun' beheld, I trow,
The vera wraith
0' whilom Maister Peter Lowe,
Clad in 's last claith.
" Ye seem to ken me, frien'," quo' he,
" Though how that sic a thing should be
146
Is rather mair than I can see,
Since I hae lain
Three hun'er years but twenty-three
Aneath yon stane."
Says I, as soon's I land my breath,
An' 'tween my teeth had chacked an aith,
" Despite your weeds o' dusky death,
An' voice sae howe,
Unless I'm drunk, or daft, or baith,
Ye're Doctor Lowe,
" The founder o' our Surgeon's Ha',
Within whilk still leuk frae the wa'
Your Vandyke chafts, adown whilk fa'
Rich wavy curls,
Imper'l, an' moustache fu' braw
Wi' wee French twirls.
" Whase life has been sae quaintly drawn
By Finlayson,* our chief savan' ',
An' whase famed warks auld-farrant stan'
In honoured place
O' th' library, in whilk are shawn
Thy gloves in case."
" That ye're a son o'
I guess frae what ye've just let drap,
How say you then to tak' a stap
Behint some stane?
The snell nicht air through this thin hap
Cuts to the bane ! "
* "Account of the Life and Works of Maister Peter Lowe, the
Founder of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of
Glasgow," by James Finlayson, M.D., LL.D., &c. Glasgow,
1889.
147
When we had reached whare it was lown,
An' on our hunkers couried down,
The moon's white face, now waner grown,
Leuked o'er the scene ;
While out the lift the starnies shone,
Wi' fainter sheen.
" Now that we're seated, gie's your crack,"
The doctor op'd his mouth an' spak,
" Sae changed are things as I leuk back,
I'm maist aye fain
Aboon my 'wildered heid to tak'
The mools again !
" The burn, the wood, the fiel's, the flowers;
The Palace* an' the West Kirkt towers;
The manse,* within whase garden bowers,
My love an' I
Ance felt the happy gloamin' hours
Like minutes fly ;
" They a' are mony a year since gane,
Their place built up wi' lime an' stane;
The gray Cathedral stan's alane,
Still to the fore,
* The remains of the Bishop's Palace were removed in 1789,
to make room for the Royal Infirmary, which was erected on
its site.
t The western tower, together with the consistory house or
library, which stood on the north and south-west corners of the
Cathedral, were pulled down in the middle of the nineteenth
century.
+ Dr. Lowe, who practised in Glasgow in the early years of
the seventeenth century, and was the Founder of the Faculty
of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, was married to Helen,
daughter of the Rev. David Weems, who was the first Presby-
terian minister in Glasgow after the Reformation. His resi-
dence was in the Rottenrow, and in the lodging formerly occu-
pied by the Prebendary of Carstairs.
148
By whilk I trace the past again,
An' th' lost restore."
" But, doctor, losh ! that's just the fate
0' everything that's antiquate,
E'en your ain beuks are out o' date
Ye wrote langsyne ;
Sae changed are a' our views o' late
Bout medicine,
' That if in practice ye were back,
An' just heard how the doctors crack,
'Bout microbes that diseases mak'
In human bodies,
The Faculty ye'd think, alack !
Daft, ridin' hobbies."
" Te're maybe no sae far astray,
I didna think the Faculty
Parti c'lar wise e'en in my day,
Or extra blate ;
But what the deil are microbes, pray,
'Bout whilk they prate? "
'* Microbes are germs that thrive an' breed,
An' 'mang folks' tissues browse and feed ;
In number mair than Abra'm's seed,
Or sands on shore ;
An' through the worl' diseases spread,
In mony a score.
" D'ye see that biggin', straught owre there
Frae whare we're sittin', 'cross the square,
A stane-throw wast the house o' pray'r ;
An', 'boon clock-face,
A dome that rises in the air
Wi' meikle grace? "
149
" My een are like the mole's a wee,
That in the mirk ay best can see ;
But owre there surely used to be
The palace house,
Frae whilk the Bishop ruled his see,
Canty an' crouse? "
" Ye're richt eneugh, it's as ye say,
Though that's now our Infirmary,
Whare first was taught the theory
That germs in air
The ruin were o' surgery,
An' chief bugbear.
" Joe Lister was the surgeon's name,
Wha's now a peer o' worl'-wide fame ;
He said the germs they were to blame
For 's wounds no healin',
An' fand a plan to kill the same,
An' stop them beilin'.
" Ye needna glow'r, it's true eneugh
His plan at first was crude and rough ;
For germs, like cats, are mortal teugh,
Their thread to nick ;
But Joe he mixed the rare druschoch,
Soon did the trick.
" Carbolic acid, fine an' nippy,
Made down to ane or less in twenty
0' aqua, oil, an' spray, an' putty
Rub'd up wi' chalk,
Them smoor'd as in a brunstane cootie,
As deid's a mauk.
150
" The spray to sterilise the air,
Lotion to clean an' guard the sair,
An' putty, wi' tinfoil, a square,
Were a' his tools ;
While for details, a patience rare,
Ne'er gien to fools.
>
" Protected by this germicide,
His knife in abscess safe did glide;
An' compound fractures, gapin' wide,
He rinsed out clean,
The breach wi' 's putty then did hide,
Snug an' serene.
" When twa-three days had syne come roun',
An' he had lows'd the dressin's doun,
What pus there was about the woun'
Your e'e wad held ;
Nor fient a haet that wasna soun'
Was to be smelFd.
" Sic were the rough an' ready ways
He practised in those early days ;
His blunders, failures, and delays
The finin' pot,
That error frae the truth displays,
When humbly sought.
" Still visions perfect, did this seer
0' antiseptics fondly rear,
When operations without fear
Performed wad be,
That ance were deemed ayont the sphere
0' surgery.
151
" 0' lives an' limbs still to the fore,
That anee were lopp'd aff by the score,
He fondly dreamt; an' e'en before
To th' east* gaed he,
For healthiness his ain wards bore
Awa' the gree.
" Whilk made his colleagues him deride,
An' mak' bo-keek o' 's germicide ;
But he his time did wisely bide,
An' wrought awa' ;
An' now his doctrines, far an' wide,
Are praised by a'.
" For 'mang his gen'rous student youth,
When he gaed east, an' later south,!
He left disciples o' his truth,
Wha didna shame,
By practice an' by word o' mouth,
To spread its fame.
" Sir Hector C , his then house-man,
Wha' mav be said his 'prentice-han'
To hae got tried on Joe's new plan
At 's vera birth,
Is now a cunnin' journeyman
0' meikle worth.
" An' there's Sir Will. Macewen, too,
Wha ably fills his chair e'now,
To th' microbe doctrine's stuck like glue;
An' mony mae
* Professor Lister was appointed in 1869 to the Chair of
Clinical Surgery in Edinburgh, vacated by his father-in-law,
the celebrated Mr. Syme.
t Professor Lister left Edinburgh in 1877 to become Professor
of Clinical Surgery in King's College Hospital, London.
152
Eae held the torch aloft to view,
E'en to this day.
" Mair antiseptic e'en than he,
The maister's crude germ theory
They've brought to sic efficiency,
That, safe 's the bank,
Feats are performed in surgery
0' the first rank.
" Sic like as straught'nin' bow't leg banes,
Removing tumours frae folks' brains,
Whippin' out ga' an' kidney stanes,
An' far waur lesions,
Or fumblin' inside human wames,
To lowse adhesions.
" That's just a swatch of what's been done
Sin' antiseptics hae come in;
The surgeon now thinks 't nae mair sin
To plunge a whittle
In thorax, brain, or abdomen,
Than eat his vittle."
" Sic ferlies, guidsake ! fair cow a'
That e'er before I heard or saw ;
It har'ly soun's, this windy blaw,
Like barber skill,
Whilk in my day kent nought ava,
But how to kill.
" But, gracious me ! your story, frien',
Has my auld pate bambaz'd as clean
As I'd been mortal fou yestreen ;
This Lister chiel
153
Mun surely hae colleaguin' been
Wi' the black deil.
" Yet if the half ye tell be true
About this germicidal brew,
Then after a' there's something new
Aneath the sun ;
An' Solomon's despairin' view
Was just his fun."
" But mair's to tell this theory,
First born in the Infirmary,
Has e'en had the monopoly
0' medicine
As meikle 's darin' surgery,
Amaist sin* syne.
" The wee germs' modes o' life an' ways
Microbes they're a' ca'd nowadays
Ance wrapp'd in a mysterious haze,
An' Vague surmise,
Hae been shawn up in every phase,
An' queerest guise.
" Particularly their fell relation
To ilk disease's curs'd causation,
Has wrought a perfect transformation
In theory,
An' practice baith, o' the physician
O' th' present day.
" Observers swear they're far mair plenty
Than bugs, an' fleas, an' sic like gentry ;
0' every shape they can content ye,
Be 't rod or crank,
154
Drum-stick, or dot, or tirlie-wirlie,
Or link or shank.
" There's ane they say to ilk disease,
That in the bluid sets up a bleeze
Consumption, typhoid, what ye please,
Diphtheria,
An' influenza, man's new tease,
An' cholera.
" Sic meikle names, too, as they've a',
Soun's laughable for folks sae sma',
'T wad nearly tak' your breath awa'
Them to get roun',
Or else to gie ye a lock-jaw
They wad be boun'.
" But, big or wee, they fin' their way
To folks' insides, intent to stay,
An' there sic deev'lish cantraips play
Wi' flesh an' bluid,
That patients aften frae that day
Do nae mair guid."
" The worF it mun be altered sair
Sin' in 't I doctor'd my bit share.
Auld Egypt's plagues are little mair
Than a fleabite
To this new-fangl'd microbe scare,
That's come to light.
" But if mankin's sae at the mercy
0' sic wee d d impudent gentry,
Is there nae way to stop their entry?
Tour clever chiels
155
Micht at the threshold place a sentry
To kill the deils."
" Ou, aye, but that's anither crack,
Whilk to explain some time would tak' ;
Auld Nature's neither lame nor slack,
Ye needna fear,
An' sae's provided a bit chack
To their career."
" Come, hurry then, wi' your new tale,
For moon an' stars begin to fail ;
The east there's growin' ashy pale,
An' soon mun I
Back to my lowly hammock hail,
An' lanely lie."
" Aweel, I'll be as gleg's I can,
But, first and foremost, un'erstan'
That ilk white cell in bluid o' man
'S a phagocyte,
Whase trade it is, by Nature's plan,
Microbes to fight.
" The phagocytes, as soon's they spy
The blasted microbes sailin' by,
Rush aff to smite them hip an' thigh
Withouten quarter,
Till heids and thraws their corpses lie,
A mighty slaughter.
" But 'fore the battle's weel in view,
The microbes, to their tactics true,
Frae out their rod-like droddums spew
A fell toxine,
156
Their enemies to mak 's blin' fou
As they'd drunk wine.
" The phagocytes still valiantly
Advance in a' their battle 'ray,
The bigger cells the cavalry
Gallop right in ;
The wee-er chaps the infantry
Come on ahin'.
" The fight now rages hot an' sair,
In front, to right, to left, an' rear ;
In heaps are llyin' everywhere
The dead and wounded ;
Nae flag o' truce is hoisted here
Or retreat sounded ;
" Till fatted are the hungry kytes
0' the victorious phagocytes
Wi' the defeated microbe wights,
Wounded an' slain,
That they'll nae mair in mortal fights
Engage again.
" But should the microbes wi' their brew,
Whilk they out o' their droddums spew,
Succeed in makin' mortal fou
The phagocytes,
That they gang stoit'rin', stach'rin' through,
In ithers' gaits,
" They dose them deeper wi' toxine,
Till they do clean their senses tyne,
Then owre their bodies, prancing fine,
In swarms they flow ;
157
In patient's bluid the storm bursts syne,
Soon lays him low.
" Though whare he weathers the attack,
It's part o' Nature's cunnin' wark,
In 's purple stream secret to mak'
A substance wise,
Whilk does the murd'rous toxine dark
Antagonise.
" An' sae he's rendered quite immune,
Syne out his fever safe does soom,
His wonted health back to resume,
An' daily wark ;
At th' toxine he can snap his thoum,
As blithe 's a lark.
" The upshot then o' a' this din
'S that drugs are cassen to the win',
An' serum-therapy brought in ;
A wee injection
O' antitoxin 'neath the skin
'S the gran' protection.
But just as I 'gan to explain
How serum frae horse-bluid was ta'en,
A blasted cock, down some by-lane,
Let out a craw,
An' 'fore I kent the ghaist was gane,
Clean stown awa'.
158
GLASGOW'S MUNICIPAL
SERVICES.
A LEAD TO THE WORLD.
By JAMES WILLOCK.
YES, we Glasgow citizens are rather proud of
Glasgow. Not because our city is the Second City
of the Empire. That is a mere distinction of
numbers. .Besides, we have doubts as to whether
or not Calcutta has more people within its borders
than we have. And there is also Birmingham.
What does it matter ? Greatness of population is no
standard of greatness of a city.
Our pride is based on something higher than mass
of population. It is based on Glasgow's pre-
eminence in the provision of services by the munici-
pality for the benefit of the citizens. In many
respects Glasgow has anticipated measures which
would more properly belong to the Socialistic State.
It believes in municipalisation, not nationalisation.
And from the practical expression of its belief has
grown the many successes of its civic enterprise.
As a kind of foster-parent to the citizens, the Cor-
poration provides them with various necessities of
civilised life, as well as with what some people
regard as the luxuries of existence literature, art,
and music. Of course, Glasgow citizens growl just
like the citizens of any other town about the high
159
rates. It is human nature to growl. But were
they to take the trouble to examine the details, they
might realise that they get quite a good bargain
for payment of the rates.
Municipalisation is no recent growth in Glasgow.
It began early. As early as 1760, when the Cor-
poration set out to improve on Providence by tack-
ling the deepening of the Clyde. For forty-nine
years the civic fathers continued the work, but in
1809 harbour and river were handed over to the
Clyde Trust, now the responsible body for the
control of the busy docks of Glasgow. Water seems
to have exercised an irresistible fascination on these
early pioneers of municipalisation. Their next
enterprise was to provide an ample water supply
for the city. Private enterprise had done so for
over forty years. But the Corporation, convinced
that communal enterprise could do better, decided
to do something for itself, and, incidentally, for
posterity. It lifted its eyes to the hills of the High-
lands, some thirty-four miles to the north of the
city, and proposed to tap Loch Katrine, the jewel
of the Trossachs. Impressed by the opinion of the
Admiralty that the Corporation scheme would affect
navigation on the River Forth, and the views of a
professor, who maintained that the action of water
on lead would render its use exceedingly dangerous,
Parliament rejected the Glasgow bill asking for
powers. But the Corporation, though dismayed,
was determined. It examined the case for the
opposition, collected rebutting evidence, and, twelve -
months after its defeat, obtained Parliamentary
permission to carry out the scheme. It also bought
160
Loch Katrine and Ben Venue
out the private companies, and in 1859 Queen Vic-
toria opened the works at Loch Katrine. As the
result of continuous development and the purchase
of other lochs and reservoirs, the municipality can
now supply 110,000,000 gallons of water each day to
the citizens.
Providence and the Corporation were partners in
that enterprise. Providence supplied the water;
the Corporation brought it to the homes of the
citizens. But the Corporation was wholly respon-
sible for the tramway system, a famous feather in
the cap of the municipality. Again Glasgow was
ahead as a pioneer. In 1872 the Corporation con
structed the first tramway line in the city. Ever
since that year the tramway lines have always been
part of the communal property. Only, the city did
not work the system. The municipalised track was
leased to a private company for twenty-three years.
In 1894 the Corporation, however, undertook the
working of the tramways. Six years later the whole
system was electrified. The success of the trams
has been remarkable, and, though they do not pro-
vide a revenue sufficient to abolish rates, as has been
alleged by foreign admirers, they are the chief
contributor to the civic reserve fund. The system,
which, measured in single track, extends over a
length of 198| miles, is most efficient, and the fares
charged are the lowest in the country, though a
year ago they had to be increased in sympathy with
the increase in the cost of everything. The
traffic revenue this year was 2,347,218, and over
431 million passengers were carried. This far-flung
system of municipal transport, to which the Subway
M 161
lias been this year added by purchase from a private
company, has a distinct social value. It efficiently
and conveniently links up the suburbs and the open
country beyond with the city. The facilities it pro-
vides for getting about are constant invitations for
the citizens to leave the overcrowded centre and live
outwith the city. The trams will undoubtedly help
to solve the problem of overcrowding in the con-
gested areas in Glasgow the problem of problems
of the city, the skeleton in our civic cupboard which
we do not care to trot out for the gaze of strangers.
Of course, electricity and gas are municipalised.
What of less material things, which pay no financial
dividend, only dividends in the moral and physical
advancement of the people? Well, the munici-
pality is enthusiastic and enterprising in the sphere
of the uplift. It has thirty-one parks, several out-
with the city boundaries. One unique in parks 13
at Ardgoil, a Highland ridge of a wild and pic-
turesque nature between Loch Long and Loch
Goil. Another is situated on the shores of Loch
Lomond, bought by the Corporation in order to
preserve for the benefit of ordinary people a bit of
" the bonnie, bonnie banks " of the Queen of Scot-
tish lochs; a third is Cathkin Braes Park, three
miles from the eastern boundaries, and two outside
the southern bounds are Rouken Glen and the Linn
Park. Many of these have been gifted by generous
citizens. In addition to its parks, the city has
ninety open spaces, giving a touch of gaiety to con-
gested areas, and providing resting-places for the old
and playgrounds for the young. Nor has the spirit
of play been banished from the parks, for many of
162
them have facilities for football and cricket, while
municipal golf courses and bowling greens and
tennis courts have been established. And these are
being increased each year, as the old policy of
reserving public parks for sheep and " keep off the
grass " notices has now vanished into the liinbo of
forgotten things.
Music, too, is a feature of the parks of Glasgow.
The Corporation has Parliamentary powers to spend
4000 each year on the provision of music in the
parks, but the expenditure is often over 10,000,
the deficit being met from the revenue derived from
reserved seats. The municipality also provides
cheap vocal and instrumental concerts in the public
halls at a small charge, and in its spacious Art
Galleries at Kelvingrove, which contain pictures
calculated to make American collectors envious,
organ recitals are frequently given. Nor are the
claims of literature ignored, as all over the city are
free libraries, with the Mitchell Library, containing
well over 200,000 volumes, as the heart of the
municipal library system.
So much for the mental and moral well-being of
the citizens. What about the physical? Well,
the Public Health Department is up to date and
efficient. Its efficiency is perhaps best indicated by
the continuous decline in the death-rate. In 1870
the rate was 29*6 per thousand, compared with 15'0
in 1920, the difference being equivalent to a saving
of over 16,000 lives per annum. Cleansing of
streets, disposal of refuse, measures for the preven-
tion of infectious diseases, the provision of hospitals
and sanatoria, sanitation, public baths and wash-
163
houses are all enterprises inspired and controlled by
the municipality, which is determined to make
Glasgow a healthy city.
Do we claim Glasgow to be a kind of half-way
house to Utopia? In exalted moments we may.
But, alas ! we recognise there is a fly in the oint-
ment. We are none too proud of our housing.
But let it be put to our credit we recognise the
blemish on the escutcheon of our municipal emin-
ence, and are trying hard to wipe it off. Only, we
move slowly. The job is so big. And so costly,
especially when money is scarce and a Ministry of
Health has rather limited ideas of what a real house
ought to be.
Glasgow characteristically began early to take
an interest in the housing of " the under-dog.''
The first step was taken in 1866, by the
passing of the Glasgow Improvements Act, under
which dilapidated and insanitary dwellings on
about 90 acres in various parts of the city were
demolished; 30 new streets were formed, and 20
existing streets were widened and improved. It was
a very notable purge, showing that the municipality
was in earnest. By another Act, passed in 1897,
seven congested and insanitary areas in the centre
of the city were cleared, but the Corporation at the
same time took steps to provide houses for the poorer
classes, at a cost of 73,000. Of course, the prob-
lem of the slums is now complicated by the problem
of housing in general. . At present Glasgow requires
something over 57,000 houses, and the municipality
has set up a Housing Department to undertake the
job. Since the Armistice about 4000 houses have
164
been built by the Corporation. Frankly, the situa-
tion is worse since the signing of the Peace Treaty.
The conditions are appalling. As many as eight
persons have been found living in a single apartment,
with only one bed. In a two-apartment house two
families were discovered, eleven persons altogether.
One of the adults had tuberculosis. In the East
End two families, comprising fifteen persons,
tenanted a room and kitchen suitable for four per-
sons. In the city there are 40,654 one-apartment
and 112,672 two-apartment houses. In Sheffield
the average person has three times more room than
the average person in Glasgow. In the one case
density of population works out at 19 per acre; in.
the other, 56 per acre. That is why Glasgow has
to spend, roughly, 800,000 per year on health
measures, principally on the treatment of disease
tuberculosis, fevers, measles, and troubles which
flourish in the fetid atmosphere of congested areas.
Housing is the importunate problem of Glasgow,
which contains one-fourth of the population of
Scotland within its borders. The municipality is
alive to the urgency and importance of the problem.
At present it builds within the civic boundaries.
Ought it not, as it did in the water problem, lift
its eyes unto the hills which ring Glasgow ideal
sites for garden suburbs, where people might live
away from grey streets and towering tenements and
sordid slums?
On a hill one lifts the horizon to visions of
a brighter and better life.
165
TRADITIONS OF THE
TRADES HOUSE OF GLASGOW.
An Old Guild which the Surgeons of Glasgow
helped to establish.
By HARRY LUMSDEN.
MANY medical men may well ask, what has the
Trades House to do with us ? The West of Scotland
practitioners who have read Duncan's " Memorials
of the Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow " might
answer that the first connection of the profession
with the House is an old story, and separation
from it an incident 200 years old, both almost
forgotten. But the Guild Brethren of the Trades
House would prefer to answer that the Chirurgeons
of Glasgow did a great deal for the Brethren
300 years ago, and while they bade good-bye
to the Glasgow Crafts finally in 1722, they had
been in the preceding 120 years willing parties with
the Craftsmen in the fray which not only gave the
House its birth, but provided it with a constitution
which keeps it young, active, and vigorous to this
day.
To understand what the Trades House is, one has
to go back nearly seven centuries to the times when
the Scottish Royal Burghs began to flourish. Nearly
all such Burghs were from an early date after their
constitution by the Crown managed by a Town
166
Council of select Burgesses belonging to the Merchant
or land-owning class.
The Merchants had Guilds, which were in some
cases constituted at the same time as the Burgh itself,
in others shortly afterwards. .
But there was a class of Freemen in each Burgh
who did not belong to the Merchant Guild. They
were not so wealthy. Their means of livelihood was
" unworthy of the dignity of a Merchant." They
were only Master Craftsmen. It soon became evident
to these Craftsmen that unless they combined in a
similar way to the Merchants, who had their Guild (a
kind of business and civic Trade Union) from which
all Craftsmen were excluded, they would never have
fair play in the administration of the Burgh to which
their superior numbers at least gave them the right.
The Scottish Craftsmen imitated the example of
their brethren in England and the Continent by
forming voluntary associations of their own which
were primarily intended to look after the interests
of the Craft and Craft Burgesses, and to succour
Craftsmen and their families who might be in need,
but were also intended as a form of combination
through which to claim public rights and exclusive
privileges in practising their vocations.
At a still later stage these Craft Guilds each
obtained legal recognition from the Burgh by means
of a Charter, or, to use a Scottish term, a Seal of
Cause. Even this, however (which made them an
Incorporated Body), was found insufficient to enable
them to fight the Merchants, in their desire for a due
share in the management of the Burgh. Each Trade
was a separate Incorporation by itself, with " Home
167
Rule," but the Craftsmen as a whole were not
combined.
This weakness was got over in Scottish Royal
Burghs by the Crafts federating. The Deacons of
the Crafts met together, along with one or two
Masters of each Craft, and appointed a Chairman to
preside over their deliberations on common affairs.
They called him in Scottish phraseology their " Con-
vener," and to distinguish him from other conveners
he was known as the " Deacon Convener."
The body which thus met came to be known u> the
" Convenery of the Burgh."
While this was the custom in Royal Burghs, it does
not hold good with early Glasgow, however, for
Glasgow was not a Royal Burgh. It had no Corporate
Merchant Guild. It had no Convenery, although it
had, by the end of the sixteenth century, fourteen
Incorporated Trades, one of them the Incorporation
of Chirurgeons and Barbers, the only one of the four-
teen created by Royal Charter.
Doubtless the Merchants of Glasgow must have had
some form of Association prior to 1004, when their
disputes with the Craftsmen culminated in arbitra-
tion, and doubtless also the Deacons had often met
together and communed on matters of common in-
terest. But the fact remains, there was in Glasgow
a different state of circumstances from what would
certainly have been found in a Royal Burgh.
In Glasgow, therefore, while the Crafts had all
their Seals of Cause in 1605, the Merchant Burgesses
as a class had obtained no legal recognition. The
Burgess Freemen were all simple Burgesses and no
more, whether Merchants or Craftsmen. There was
no such class as the Burgess and Guild Brother.
168
The Trades House
The dispute between the Merchants and the Crafts-
men of 1604 probably reached a crisis by reason of
the repeated requests made by the Convention of
Royal Burghs to the Glasgow Merchants to form a
Guild. This was opposed strenuously by the non-
federated Incorporated Trades on every occasion when
it was mooted. The disputes became so serious that
arbitration was resorted to, and in the arbitration
th$ Chirurgeons of Glasgow bore a considerable part.
Being a separate corporate body, they ranged them-
selves with the Craft Corporations, and out of twelve
Craft Commissioners two were Chirurgeons (Mr.
Peter Lowe, the Quarter Master or Treasurer, and
Mr. Robert Hamilton, the Visitor or Deacon of the
Chirurgeons at that time). Moreover, Mr. Lowe's
father-in-law, the Rev. David Weems, Parson and
Dean of Glasgow, was one of the four Oversmen who
drew up the Decree Arbitral. In a little less than
four months there was issued the famous document
now known as the " Letter of Guildry." It created
a Guildry for the first time in Glasgow, and gave
Burghal sanction to a new combination among the
Merchants, from which eventually arose the Mer-
chants House, and to a federation of the Trades,
from which arose a Convenery, with a Deacon Con-
vener at its head, now known as the Trades House.
But in Glasgow alone there was this important dis-
tinction which the Craftsmen had fought for and
won, both Merchants and Craftsmen formed com-
ponent parts of one Guildry, while their own Trade
organisations were separate and distinct from it;
in other Burghs the Guildry was composed entirely
of Merchants.
1G9
Nevertheless, the old legal distinction between the
two classes was peculiarly emphasised. Once entered
as Burgesses and Guild Brethren, the Freemen be-
came associated with one or other of the two great
sections, and these sections never came together
for any purpose, except through their representatives,
in the Dean of Guild's Council or Court. A Freeman
who did not make his choice remained a simple
Burgess, and was not accounted a Guild Brother at
all. We therefore see three classes of inhabitants
(1) Non-Burgess (with no trade rights); (2) Simple
Burgess (with only such Trade rights as did not
infringe those of the Merchant and Craft Guild
Brethren) ; (3) Burgess and Guild Brother (a) of
Merchant Rank, or (6) of Trades Rank.
Fines, as they were then called, i.e., Entry
Monies, were charged at each stage of the citizen's
qualification. A fine to the Town for Burgess-ship ;
a fine to the Guildry for entry as Guild Brother ;
which went either to the Merchants Rank or the
Trades Rank, in accordance with the section of the
Guildry in which the new Burgess wished to enrol.
The administration of these two funds was left to>
the discretion on the one hand of the Dean of Guild r
with the advice of the Merchant Council, and on the
other hand to the Deacon Convener, with the advice
of the rest of the Deacons and their assistants. A
further fine was exacted for entry money when a
Craftsman became a fully qualified member of his
Craft. The accumulations of these fines have in
three centuries made the Merchants House, the
Trades House, and its fourteen individual Craft Cor-
porations very wealthy, benevolent Institutions.
170
One can now distinguish the unique triple
organisation which was created in Glasgow by the
Letter of Guildry out of the United Guild
Brethren
(1) The Dean of Guild and his Council of eight-
four from each rank forming what is
now known as the Dean of Guild Court.
(2) The Dean of Guild, with his Merchant
Council managing the Merchants Hos-
pital and the funds accumulated from the
Merchants' Guildry Fines and from other
sources.
(3) The- Deacon Convener, with the Deacons of
the fourteen Crafts and their assistants
chosen by him from each Craft, managing
the Trades Hospital, and the funds
accumulated from the Craftsmen's
Guildry Fines and from other sources.
Each of the fourteen Crafts retained con-
trol of its own affairs and of its accumu-
lating funds, and among them were the
Chirurgeons.
The first body has come down to us without change,
and is still the Dean of Guild Court of Glasgow.
We recognise the second body as the directors of
the " Merchants House," and the third as the repre-
sentatives of the " Trades House," the Merchants
House being the whole of the Merchant Guild
Brethren, and the Trades House the whole federated
rank of Craft Guild Brethren belonging to the Incor-
porated Trades. Over and above all these three repre-
sentative bodies was another representative body, the
171
" Town's Great Council," the administrators of the
community of Glasgow (the Provost, Magistrates,
Dean of Guild ex officio, Deacon Convener ex officio,
and the Merchant and Trade Councillors). King
James VI. had wisely ordained that the Town
Council should, like the Dean of Guild Court, consist
of Merchants and Craftsmen in equal numbers.
The Deacon Convener's Council was first composed
of the Deacons and certain "assistants" belonging
to each Craft, selected by the Deacon Convener. It
was intended to be a representative body, and in the
course .of a few years the Deacons chose their own
" Assistants." At first, and for fifty or sixty years,
the number of assistants from each Craft varied, but
in the year 1647 the total representatives became
fixed at 54, and remained the same in number and
proportions till 1920. How the proportion of repre-
sentatives was arrived at is unknown, e.g., the
Hammermen had six representatives, the Weavers
four, the Surgeons three, the Bonnetmakers only
two, and this eventually caused discontent. It was
only set at rest by the Trades House Provisional
Order, 1920, which gave nine of the Crafts increased
representation up to four members each.
The Letter of Guildry gave power to the Town
Council to choose the Deacon Convener from leets
presented to it. With the passing of the Burgh
Eeform Act in 1833 this power was taken away, and
for the first time in 228 years the Deacon Convener
thus became leader of the Burgess Craftsmen of
Glasgow by popular election. Immediately the
Trades House introduced the principle within its
own ranks. The qualified Freemen of each lucor-
172
poration have since annually elected not only their
Deacons, hut also their representatives in the House,
hy direct vote.
The Convener's Council hecame known as the
" Deacon Convener's House " in 1668. " Councillors
of the Crafts House " was first used in 1676, and
" Crafts House " gradually changed into Trades
House." The correct official title of the gentlemen
who form the Deacon Convener's Council is " The
Eepresentatives of the Trades House." The fourteen
Crafts represented were the Hammermen, Tailors,
Cordiners, Maltnien, Weavers, Bakers, Skinners,
Wrights, Coopers, Fleshers, Masons, Gardeners,
Chirurgeons, and Bonnetmakers. Some of the Crafts
were composite Crafts, in which were combined a
number of different callings. Chief among these
were the Hammermen, which embraced at least a
dozen trades, and the Chirurgeons, which included
Surgeons, Barber Surgeons, Apothecaries, and
Barbers. Among the three Eepresentatives who sat
in the House from this Craft the Surgeons can be
distinguished by the prefix " Master." While things
went smoothly in that Incorporation, a Surgeon and
a Barber was elected Deacon in alternate years, but
by the beginning of the eighteenth century it became
evident that the Surgeons were out of their proper
element in such an organisation, and in the year
1720, as befitted what had then become a learned
profession, the Surgeons separated from the Barbers,
disassociated themselves from the Trades House, and
continued their corporate existence alone, relying on
the Eoyal Charter of Incorporation granted to them
by King James VI. in 1599. The Barbers obtained
173
a new Charter from the Burgh, and maintained their
association with the other Crafts in the Trades House.
The functions of the Deacon Convener's Council
were such as one might expect in a federal assembly.
Each Craft managed its own affairs. Only in matters
which concerned the Craft Guild Brethren in common
did the jurisdiction of the Convener's Council pro-
perly come into play. The similarity between the
House and the Town Council as representative bodies
here ends. The proper comparison in this aspect is
that of a Federal Union like the United States. The
Crafts are the self-governing States in the Union, the
Trades House Representatives are like a Federal
Assembly. It has often been remarked that the
Federal Constitution of the United States was drafted
by Alexander Hamilton, whose father came from
Glasgow.
The relations of the Convener's Council with the
Crafts were of a very varied character. The Acts
and Statutes of the Council covered many interesting
subjects, sometimes affecting the whole Guild
Brethren of Craft Rank as such, e.g., "that each
Craftsman, before admission to a Craft, should first
be a Burgess of the town and a Guild Brother of
Craft rank." Till about 1720 the Surgeons of
Glasgow were obliged to enrol as Burgesses and Guild
Brethren of Craft Rank before commencing practice,
and their apprentices had their indentures noted in
the Deacon Convener's Books, the usual term being
" Fyve yeirs as prenteis and twa yeirs for meit and
fee."
Sometimes these Acts affected particular Crafts
only, e.g., ft No Hammermen shall make the wood-
174
work of clocks, and no Wrights shall make the iron-
work."
Then the judgments of the House in disputes tried
before it form very interesting reading. Disputes
arose concerning the admission of members to the
Crafts, or the election of office-bearers, or trading
rights. In these last cases the dispute is sometimes
between two Crafts, and sometimes between two
Craftsmen of the same Craft. Demarcation of work
was a duty the Deacon Convener must have dreaded.
Surgeons often arraigned Barbers before him in
judgment, and vice versa. Factions in the Crafts,
discipline amongst the Members or among Journey-
men or Apprentices, and strife between one Craft
and another gave the House plenty to do. On one
occasion it had to judge of the legality of journeymen
forming a Trade Union. In that case the journey-
men had slavishly followed the methods of the Craft
itself. Their head man was known as " Deacon of
the Journeymen."
In 1612 the Chirurgeons were fined 6 Scots by
the Deacon Convener and his Court for not bearing
their share along with the other Crafts in the weed-
ing of Dumbuk Ford. The Chirurgeons were to have
sent two of their number to assist other Craft Citizens
in this disagreeable duty, but had " sendit nain."
But by far the most important relation to modern
eyes between the House and the Crafts was that con-
cerning the granting of supplementary assistance to
decayed members and their families, first, in the
early days of its existence by means of the Crafts
or Trades Hospital, and later by means of pensions.
It is a mistake, however, to suppose that the House
175
exists merely for the purpose of granting pensions,
or even for that and broader charity. Charity is
only one of the objects its revenue is intended to-
cover.
For a century and a half the Council did a great
deal of political work, petitioning for and against
and criticising Bills before Parliament, but not in a
party spirit. It is impossible to gather from the
numerous petitions in the House Records whether
these old Craftsmen were Whigs or Tories. They
looked at Bills in a broad-minded way in the inter-
ests of trade, or the City, or the Country generally.
The benevolent work of the House was imposed
upon it by the Letter of Guildry, and covered " good
and pious uses " for the welfare of the community.
Immediately after issue of the Letter of Guildry
a Deed of Agreement was entered into between thir-
teen out of the present fourteen Crafts providing for
the erection and maintenance of an Almshouse or
Trades Hospital for the use of the poor of the Crafts.
The Chirurgeons were parties to this Agreement.
Master Peter Lowe and Master Robert Hamilton
signed the document, the latter adding the words
" Deacon of the Chirurgeons " after his name.
Moreover, Lowe was appointed the first Master of
the Hospital. He had already acted as Quarter-
Master or Treasurer of his own Corporation, and
being a scholar and a well-known man of the world,
he could be relied upon to act with care and efficiency
in these days when several of the Deacons, and r
indeed, the Treasurer of the City, could not even
sign their own names !
With the sale of the Almshouse in 1790, the Agree-
17G
ment between the Crafts for its foundation and its
administration became void. By this time, however,
there had arisen the practice of granting supple-
mentary pensions to decayed Guild Brethren who
could not be accommodated in the old building. The
free revenue of which the Convener's Council now
became possessed was not for many years made use
of to increase either the number or the amount of
these pensions. But the Council began to enlarge
and extend its grants to " other good and godly
work, tending to the advancement of the common-
weal " by contributing to the numerous public
schemes promoted in Glasgow as the Town grew and
prospered. Large sums were voted to assist in raising
military battalions to prosecute the American War
and the "War with France. At that period the House
raised a Battalion known as " The Trades Battalion
of Volunteers," the Colours of which are still pre-
served in the Trades Hall. The House helped to
promote the Sabbath School movement, to establish
and maintain the first general Poorhouse, to institute
the Infirmaries, Asylums, and Hospitals. It assisted
the University, Anderson's College of Medicine, and
other educational bodies, took a share in making
the Clyde navigable, in the promotion of railways
and canals, and on many occasions in the relief of
the unemployed, and in alleviating national distress.
In the meantime, the Council obtained the right
to elect Governors to a small number of public In-
stitutions of the City ; doubtless in recognition of its
share in their establishment and progress. After
the Act of 1846 had abolished the exclusive privileges
of trading, its fitness for acting as an electoral col-
N 177
lege by selecting directors for public Institutions
became more and more recognised. A new form of
public life was thus given to the Convener's Council,
and as the years went on privileges of this kind were
often conferred upon it as new Institutions arose.
Now it nominates or supplies representative gover-
nors to nearly forty of the public Institutions of
Glasgow.
And besides administering its own corporate funds
in public and private benevolence, the House
administers Trust Funds given or bequeathed to it
for specific objects, the revenue being devoted solely
to the purpose (educational, charitable, or otherwise)
stipulated by the donor or testator.
The functions and work of the Trades House have
changed but little in three centuries. Every entrant
to a Craft must still produce his Burgess Ticket
certifying that he has purchased his freedom, and is
a citizen of Glasgow. When he pays his Burgess
Fine he also pays to the Town-Clerk his Guildry
Fine and becomes a Guild Brother of the Craft Bank.
The Deacon Convener and his Councillors have no
longer any knotty trade problems to decide, but,
excepting this, the sphere of labour remains very
much the same, with the modern privilege added of
sending out enthusiastic workers to assist in the
administration of the great charitable and educa-
tional Institutions of the City. The Deacon Con-
vener, while presiding over his own Court of Deacons,
still has his honoured place amongst the Magistracy
of the " Town's Great Council." The four Craft
Lyners still sit by the Dean of Guild each " ordinary
Court Day " to advise him as practical men on ques-
178
tions of " neighbourhood and lining." The accumu-
lated funds of three centuries are still distributed
amongst the needy of the Craft Rank, and put to
other " good and godly work " tending towards the
commonweal.
The Craftsmen cannot forget the Surgeons of
Glasgow who stood by their side in the fight for a
share in municipal power. Most of all must they
remember Master Peter Lowe, who set their Hospital
on a sure foundation. During his two years of office
his intromissions may have been small, some 200
Scots, but no doubt he gave them an inkling of the
distinction between Capital and Revenue from which
they have long profited. Their accumulated funds
now amount to almost a million sterling. Their
membership is over 8000. They spend 30,000 a
year in benevolent Grants, and do not ignore in their
annual distribution the calls of outside charities.
The democratic spirit which prompted them to fight
for civic freedom in 1605 has developed with the
times, and their doors are now open to every citizen
who wishes to join in the good work. All the learned
professions are well represented in their ranks, and
mo Deacon is received with a more cordial welcome
on taking his seat in the Trades House than one who
is already a Fellow of the ancient Faculty of
Physicians and Surgeons.
179
GLASGOW MEDICAL MEN AND
LITERATURE.
By W. STEWART.
THE printing press did not reach Glasgow till 1638.
For many years thereafter almost all the books sent
out from it were prescriptions for the healing of
souls (" Therapeutica Sacra " was the title of one of
them): the bodies were left in the care of their un-
instructed owners, backed by the skill, when they
cared to employ it, of the members of Peter Lowe's
Faculty, or of the ignorant pretenders whom it was
Peter's function in life to exterminate. It is signifi-
cant that the collector of Glasgow books bases his
library upon " The Last Battell of the Soule in
Death," a book not printed in Glasgow, but written
by a famous minister of the city, who was to write
many more. The first piece of Glasgow printing
was a " Protestation " by the General Assembly of
the Church in 1638, which abolished Episcopacy;
and at least seven-eighths of the output onward to the
end of the seventeenth century were ecclesiastical
or theological in character. Even Peter Lowe's
" Discourse of the Whole Art of Chyrurgerie," which
went into several editions up till as late as 1654, was
never once printed here.
Many valuable contributions to medical literature
have been made by members of the profession associ-
180
ated with Glasgow ; but of these works it is not for a
layman to speak. What he can do, however, is to
call attention to doctors of medicine who have
brought fame to themselves and to the city by their
labours in connection with the production of books
and literature.
About 1740 a young doctor, Alexander Wilson,
went from St. Andrews to London, where he became
interested in typefounding an art upon which, as
then practised, he thought he could improve. He
returned to his native city and set up a foundry.
This venture proved so successful that he was com-
pelled to remove to Glasgow for the convenience of
an Irish trade that had grown up, and which ulti-
mately fell by lot to his partner, who removed to
Dublin. Wilson thus became sole proprietor of the
foundry at Camlachie, and in time he produced there
types of the highest excellence. These were turned
to the finest account by the brothers Foulis, the
famous printers, in books which still mark the
highest point in Scottish typography. These books,
as was the fashion of the time, were chiefly the works
of classical authors, edited by professors of the Uni-
versity ; they circulated all over the Continent, and
so types ecossais gained fame among the scholars of
Europe and their printers. Dr. Wilson latterly
became Professor of Astronomy in the University,
and carried on his foundry within the college walls.
A member of the profession who had an astonish-
ing career, and who left as his memorial a great work
in bookish history, was Eobert Watt. A farmer's
drudge at eleven, later a quarryman's assistant, and
at nineteen a working joiner, Watt bequeathed to the
181
world when lie died in 1819, at the early age of forty-
five, not only medical writings of real importance at
the time, but an unpublished work of immense biblio-
graphical value, the " Bibliotheca Britannica."
This work represented a new method in the presenta-
tion of bibliographical lore, and it is still authorita-
tive. The late Dr. James Finlayson made both the
profession and local historians his debtors by his
monographs, at once minutely accurate and tactfully
sympathetic, on Dr. Watt and Maister Peter Lowe.
But the medical man of Glasgow connection whose
literary fame is of the widest range and most endur-
ing quality is Tobias Smollett, whose failure in
medicine made him the greatest rival to Fielding
in fiction. Born in 1721 in the Yale of Leven, he
served apprenticeship to a famous Glasgow surgeon,
and afterwards proceeded to London carrying in
his pocket a tragedy with a motif that has inspired
many poets to dramatic utterance the assassination
of James I. of Scotland. He found theatrical pro-
ducers as shy then as now; and Smollett became
surgeon's mate in the Cumberland 80-gun ship of
war. In this capacity he took part in the disastrous
expedition against Carthagena, of which a descrip-
tion forms a notable part of his first novel,
" Roderick Random." Abandoning the navy,
Smollett tried medicine in London and at Bath, but
without success, so he settled down at Chelsea to-
become, in Thackeray's words, " reviewer and his-
torian, critic, medical writer, poet, and pam-
phleteer." Thackeray's enumeration of roles was
incomplete, for Smollett was greatest of all as
novelist. " Roderick Random," " Peregrine
182
Pickle," " Ferdinand Count Fathom," and
" Humphrey Clinker " are his most important con-
tributions to the fiction of the English language,
and they are of enduring quality.
It cannot be often in the history of literature that
one man in any profession has had among his appren-
tices two youths who have made themselves famous
as novelists. Yet this was the fortune of John
Gordon, a Glasgow surgeon, who acted as training
master to Tobias Smollett (whom he once spoke of
with dubious admiration as " my ain bubbly-nosed
callant "), and John Moore, whose third son made a
bigger splash in the unlettered world as the hero of
Corunna and of the burial ode that thrilled our
juvenility by telling how
We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moonbeams' misty light
And the lanterns dimly burning.
Dr. John Moore, whose literary fame depends mainly
on " Zeluco," took to the army as the medium of
practising his profession, served in the hospitals in
the Low Countries, and afterwards practised in Paris,
where he had been household surgeon to the British
Ambassador. He returned to Glasgow on his former
employer's invitation to take a partnership in the
business, and, unlike Smollett, succeeded in his
original profession, and made only a moderate show
in literature. Later he travelled with the young
Duke of Hamilton on the Continent, and at
the end of the tour settled down in London,
where he had a successful practice. " Zeluco,"
his most important book, is now forgotten by
183
all but the literary historian, and his other
writings even by that patient toiler ; but Dr.
John Moore will live in the history of letters as
the man who drew from Robert Burns the autobio-
graphical letter that forms the starting point of
every " life " of the poet. Burns, who sometimes
allowed his enthusiasm to outrun his excellent
critical capacity, thought so highly of his friend's
novel that he contemplated " a comparative view
of you, Fielding, Richardson, and Smollett, in your
different qualities and merits as novel-writers.
Original strokes," he tells Dr. Moore, " that strongly
depict the human heart is your and Fielding's pro-
vince beyond any other novelist I have perused.
Richardson, indeed, might perhaps be excepted ; but,
unhappily, his dramatis persona are beings of some
other world." It cannot be said that posterity has
accepted Burns's view. Curiously, Burns's official
biographer was a member of the profession, James
Currie, of Liverpool, who took his degree of M.D.
at Glasgow College. Useful additions, too, have
been made to Burnsiana in " Burns's Chloris : A
Reminiscence," by James Adams, M-.D., who had
little need to plead " in deprecation of criticism "
of his little book that his exercise in writing had
been " restricted to dry professional and scientific
monographs"; and in "Robert Burns and the
Medical Profession," by William Findlay, M.D.
Both these writers practised their art in this city.
The famous brothers, John and William Hunter,
both students of surgery at Glasgow, both writers
of books on professional subjects, though not in
general literature, were both collectors, and both
184
perpetuated their name to the vulgar by bequeathing
their collections to institutions that have ensured
-their preservation. To Glasgow thanks to Govern-
ment indifference to an offer of the gift to London-
came the wonderful collection of coins, books, pic-
tures, &c., of William Hunter; and these are now
housed in our University. The coin cabinet has
been partially described in magnificent volumes by
Dr. George Macdonald; the manuscripts in the
Hunterian Library have also been described in a
catalogue begun by John Young, M.D., a former
curator of the Museum, and completed after his
death as a memorial to the compiler; the books in
the collection will soon have a similar guide it is
well forward. Dr. Young, who was a crisp
and caustic writer, made the Library the sub-
ject of an address to the subscribers to Stirling's
Library in Glasgow; and that address has been in-
cluded with others to form a minor memorial
volume of Dr. Young. William Hunter was many
years in advance of his time as a collector, or he
Avould not have been able to bring together prob-
ably at what would now be an insignificant expense
for such treasures the coins or books that we know.
Dr. Young roughly estimated the books belonging
to the various periods as 381 works (not volumes)
dated prior to 1500 incunabula, as the experts call
them; 249 between the century and 1525; 1715
published in the next seventy-five years ; and 1486
of the following century. In addition there are in
round figures some 7000 volumes of professional
books and general literature. " Everything was
preserved: endless controversies and squibs regarding
185
a notable fraud of the day, the rabbit-woman of
Godalming, vaccination and inoculation, a charming
gathering of all the objurgatory language that
medical men were (perhaps are) capable of applying
to each other when crossed in debate or anticipated
in discovery." These, however, were but the trivia
of the Library: thirteen Caxtons and numerous
works coveted by the bibliophiles of to-day provide
a substantial balance to lesser things, however in-
teresting in themselves. Dr. Young could and did
rhapsodise over his treasures and the " judicious
lavishness " of the collector ; he could also permit
himself to anathematise fools, as when he avers that
" we cannot wish well to the soul of the man who
carefully washed out the name of the former owner
of the French Roman de la Rose for the sake of
recording his own insignificance." We in our day
can be grateful for Dr. Young's enthusiasm in both
these forms of expression. But the vigorous curator
was not the only medical man inspired by the
Hunters, for another one, George R. Mather, M.D.,
became the biographer of the two brothers. Dr.
Mather was an East End practitioner, much loved in
his own district, a man of fine literary taste, and
one of the founders of the Glasgow Sir Walter Scott
Club. A niece of the Hunters, though not in medi-
cine as, indeed, she could not then be yet living
in a professional atmosphere, her brother being
Matthew Baillie, M.D., had great fame as a poet
in her day. Now Joanna Baillie must be written
down as one of the " inheritors of unfulfilled
renown."
Another writer who had a doctor of medicine for
18G
biographer was Thomas Campbell, the greatest of
the numerous poets of Glasgow, whose place in
literary history should, in the opinion of excellent
judges, stand higher than it does to-day. Not only
as a poet, but as a maker of phrases that are house-
hold words, Campbell should be remembered. It
was he who told us that " coming events cast their
shadows before," that " 'tis distance lends enchant-
ment to the view," that " to live in hearts we leave
behind is not to die," that " broken hearts die slow,"
and gave us many another such jewelled generality.
Like Ossian, he, in Wordsworth's phrase,
Sang of battles and the breath
Of stormy war and violent death ;
and Hohenlinden and the Battle of the Baltic live
in the public memory because he wrote of them in
vivid and breathlessly rhythmic verse. And he,
too, as some one has said, is secure of an " immor-
tality of quotation." Though more than eighty
years have elapsed since Campbell's biography by
William Beattie, H.D., was published, the work is
still authoritative. But if some other medical man
cares to undertake a new " life " of the poet he
will find, if not a great deal of new material, not
available in Beattie's day, at least a new critical
standard in the appraisement of poetry.
Thomas Campbell was three times Lord Rector of
Glasgow University a prophet with honour in his
own house and in celebration of the third election
his enthusiastic supporters formed a Campbell Club.
In writing about a deputation from the Club that
waited upon him when he was on a visit to Glasgow,
he says
187
" Among the invitations which I much regret
being unable to accept is one from Samuel H ,
editor of the Glasgow Argus, a flaming Tory, but
a most original, honest fellow, whom the very
Radicals like. Sam is a sort of Falstafl 3 , without
either his knavery or his drunkenness. His
facetiousness is a godsend in relieving the fudge
of a public dinner. . . . Tory as he is, he
supported me in my election to the Rectorship,
and when some waggish enemy published that my
mother had been a ' washerwoman in the Goose-
dubs of Glasgow/ Samuel's zeal to repel the
calumny was perfectly amusing."
Samuel H was Samuel Hunter, who for thirty-
four years was editor, not of the Argus, a Radical
newspaper, but of the Glasgow Herald, and the
greatest of the city's public characters, socially and
politically, of his day. He, too, was a medical man,
and had served as an army surgeon in Ireland during
the '98. Glasgow had, indeed, the distinction of
having two doctors of medicine as newspaper editors
during the first half of the nineteenth century, for
James M'Conechy, M.D., was for twenty-three years
editor of the Glasgow Courier. In addition to editing
a number of books, he was the biographer and editor
of William Motherwell, poet and literary antiquary,
who had preceded him in the editorship of the
Courier.
Of Thomas Garnett, M.D., who was a professor at
Anderson's College here, it will suffice to say that he
was the author of a " Tour through Scotland."
Some local topographers assert that he gave his name
to the region of the city known as Garnethill ; but
188
I am not prepared to invite controversy by putting-
that forward as my own view.
If David Patoun, physician in Glasgow, did not
himself write, he provided, in the person of his son,
the subject for Lockhart's delightful elegiac ballad t
the " Lament for Captain Paton," which is still
" said or sung " by lovers of Old Glasgow, and which
one eminent obstetrician of to-day has been heard
to recite in public.
Eecent writers of great attraction in their separate
ways were William Findlay, M.D. (whose pen-name
was " George Umber "), and William Gemmell,
M.B. Dr. Findlay already mentioned as a con-
tributor to Burns literature was rather rated beyond
his merits when an ardent admirer characterised
him as the Scottish Charles Lamb; but his " In My
City Garden " is full of delightful touches and of
intense sympathy with struggling humanity char-
acteristics that pervaded the verse which he used to
read to the Glasgow Ballad Club and to print in the
newspapers. Dr. GeinmeH's tastes took an anti-
quarian turn, and the results of his careful research
were given to the public in his notes on the " Early
Views of Glasgow" drawings and engravings exe-
cuted in the Foulis Academy of Art which was
founded in the University of Glasgow in 1754,
exactly fourteen years before the institution of the
Eoyal Academy in London and in his erudite little
volume, " The Oldest House in Glasgow." This is
the history of the building known as Provand's
Lordship, which now houses a society concerned
with the maintenance of Scottish history and tradi-
tion and rights. A sad loss to local history and
189
literature was caused by the death, in 1918, on
service, of Hugh A. M'Lean, M.B. A few papers
on local matters attest his interest in and knowledge
of bygone Glasgow, and his potentialities as a
bibliographer are evidenced by his work on "Robert
Urie, Printer in Glasgow," a telling example of how
laborious work intelligently directed can produce
attractive results even in what appear to tha.ordinary
man the unattractive fields of bibliography.
In this brief, and doubtless incomplete, story of
what members of the medical profession have done
for intellectual culture in work associated with
Glasgow no mention has been made of those whose
writings have dealt with professional or scientific
subjects: that is the task of a member of the Faculty.
But, such as it is, this account may serve to show
that the disciples of ^Esculapius connected with our
city and University have been not unworthy in a
more humble way, perhaps of a profession that
numbered in its ranks Sir Thomas Browne, John
Brown of " Rab and His Friends," and Oliver
"Wendell Holmes.
190
A SKETCH OF ART IN GLASGOW.
1600-1922.
By T. C. F. BROTCHIE, Superintendent Art Galleries and
Museums.
A CELEBRATED living poet, after a recent inspection
of the Art Galleries at Kelvingrove, expressed to
me his amazement in what he termed " discovering"
such a treasure-house of Art. In answer to the
obvious query, was this his first visit to Glasgow, he
said, " No," and added, " I have passed several
times through the city travelling north, but
I never imagined that this somewhat grey
town (it was a " rainy " day when blank-
ness, uniformity,/ and drabness exasperate the
nerves) was so rich in the aesthetic elements
of life." Exactly. Our poetical traveller is
typical of many travellers on the great north road.
Yet, to the pilgrim who cares to halt for a space,
there will be revealed, perchance, a vision of things
other than those associated with the day-long
grinding of the mills and workshops. It may be
that in the distant future there will arise an artist
to whom the suggestiveness and humanity of the
feverish life of the streets and the factories and the
yards will mean a discovered treasure. Out of these
grim and grimy notes of the modern city and cities
there may blossom forth a new sestheticism if the
191
painter be great enough to handle greatly the pass-
ing pageant of the business age ; but the task is
titanic when we think, as think we must, upon the
fresh beauty of the green meadows and the bluebells
and daisies which gem the banks of the wimpling
burns. Certainly it is curious to note how most
of the great triumphs of art have been won in cities,
and in cities where life was ofttimes busy and
complex. So it was in the marts of the Middle
Ages, Bruges, Amsterdam, and Venice ; and so it
is in the great modern mart, Glasgow of to-day,
vibrant if inexplicable to those who gaze upon the
gulf that separates seemingly the lives of the massed
citizens from poetry and the vision splendid.
Art is an elastic word. If we regard it in its
wider and, I think, more clarifying sense, not con-
fining it to the putting of paint on canvas, then
the history of art in Glasgow carries us far back
upon the pathway of time. In one of the city
kirkyards there is preserved a rich collection of
sculptured stones, probably the finest collection in
Britain, with the exception of those at lona. These
stones embrace recumbent cross-slabs, erect cross-
slabs, cross-shafts, a finely sculptured sarcophagus,
and four hog-backed stones, the latter, strange
relics, puzzling to the archaeologist and the anti-
quary in their suggestion of a vanished life and
civilisation and art. The stones, of which there
are about forty, show a beautiful variety of decora-
tive design, including interlaced work, key patterns,
zoomorphs, and figure subjects. They date approxi-
mately from the sixth to the tenth century, and
their presence postulates the existence on the banks
192
Virgin and Child Botticel/i
Head of a Boy Frans Hals
of the river Clyde during the early Christian age
of a community tolerably advanced in those arts
which lend a gracious sweetness to communal life.
Casts of the sarcophagus and the hog-backed
monuments and one of the fine standing crosses are
to be seen at Kelvingrove.
A whole wilderness of barren centuries separates
the sculptors of these stones from the years when we
discover what may be described legitimately as the
first reference to " painting " of which there is any
record in our city. In the burgh records of
Glasgow of 1574, in connection with an action raised
by one " Maister Robert Herbertson " to recover
certain portions of his mother's property, mention
is made of " ane brod paynted upon ye samyn ye
Image of our Lady." The " brod " (board) is the
earliest " painting " associated with the city; the
next reference is equally modest. It is also from
the burgh records, where, under date 12th June,
1641, we read, " On the said day ordains the
threasaurer to have ane warrand to pay to James
Colquhoun fyve dollouris (dollars) for drawing of
the portrait of the town to be sent to Holland." I
suspect that the " portrait " means really a map of
the town, and that it was intended possibly for
Blaeu's Atlas, published later on at Amsterdam.
After the storms of the Reformation had blown
over, the Town Council made its bow as a patron
of Art. In the year 1627 a new Tolbooth or Town's
House was completed the tall, square-crowned
tower at the Cross belonged to this Tolbooth and
for the decoration of the Council Chamber therein
royal portraits, which still form part of the Cor-
o 193
poration collection of pictures, were from time to
time obtained. In the year 1670 the Town Council
resolved to purchase from London portraits of
Charles I. and Charles II. " for the town's use."
The portrait of the reigning monarch from the
brush of Lely was promptly procured ; that of his
father was not received till 1677, when it was hung
in the " Councell hous with the rest now thair."
"We do not know exactly what " the rest " included,
but as one of the series extant of royal effigies
which adorned the walls of the Councell Hous is a
portrait of James VI. and I., inscribed and dated
1618, we may conclude that it formed one of " the
rest." Although the magistrates of Glasgow were
stern Covenanters and Presbyterians, they seem to
have manifested in their eagerness to obtain royal
portraits a facile loyalty worthy of the " Vicar of
Bray."
In addition to the royal canvases, Allan Ramsay,
son of the author of " The Gentle Shepherd," was
commissioned to paint for the town the portrait of
Archibald, third Duke of Argyll, one of the Com-
missioners of the Treaty of Union. These portraits
now adorn the corridors of the Kelvingrove Art
Gallery.
The earliest " portrait " we possess of the city
appears in Slezer's " Theatrum Scotia," published
in 1693. Slezer was a native of Holland. He came
to Scotland in 1669, and had an appointment in the
Army. While in Scotland he did many sketches,
" prospects of the royal castles and palaces, cities,
burrows, universities, towns, and hospitals." These
were engraved by Robert White, of London, and
194
The Foulis Academy, Glasgow, 1753
(One of the earliest Art Schools in Britain)
issued in book form, with letterpress in Latin no
scholar would have deigned to look at the book had
the descriptions been in honest English by Sir
Robert Sibbald. So pleased were the members of
Parliament with the publication that an Act was
passed to defray its expenses; and promises of
patronage were given freely by the King, his son
the Duke of York, and many eminent noblemen.
Alas for the promises of Princes and Parliaments.
Poor Slezer's book would not sell; the money voted
by Parliament did not reach him; his pay as Cap-
tain of Artillery was " cut " by one-third, and
at last he was forced to flee from his creditors to
the Sanctuary at Holyrood House, Edinburgh,
where he remained in seclusion and poverty until
his death in 1717. Such was the fate of the artist
to whose skill we owe the earliest drawings of
Glasgow. These drawings are of great interest,
one of them showing the old Glasgow College, which
was founded in 1450, and stood in the High Street
of Glasgow until 1870, when the handsome pile on
Gilmorehill, overlooking the Kelvin, was thrown
open to students.
The first real attempt to foster art in Glasgow was
the establishment, in 1753, of the Glasgow Academy
of the Fine Arts by the brothers Robert and Andrew
Foulis, the celebrated printers. This school of art
was opened in a room granted by the University
fifteen years before the founding of the Royal
Academy of Arts in London, and it was really the
first effective art school in Scotland. Although
disastrous to its promoters and patrons, it exercised
a, distinct influence on the progress of art culture in
195
Scotland. The brothers Foulis brought to their
school teachers from abroad, and collected, at great
expense, pictures, casts, and engravings for their
students to copy. After a struggle of twenty-two
years, and despite the countenance of the University
and the substantial support of some Glasgow mer-
chants, the scheme ended in failure. Andrew died
in 1775, and in the following year Robert, while
on his way home after the disappointing result of
the sale of his art collection in London, died broken-
hearted in Edinburgh. Two Academy pupils,
David Allan and James Tassie, attained distinction.
David Allan, who was called the Scottish Hogarth,
from his skill in the delineation of the manners
and customs of the Scottish peasantry, is now best
remembered for his illustrations for Ramsay's
" Gentle Shepherd." Three examples of his work
are in the Kelvingrove water-colour collection.
Modelling was a feature of the course in the Foulis
Academy, and there James Tassie found his par-
ticular bent. It is interesting to note that subse-
quently he became assistant to Dr. Quin, Professor
of Physics in Dublin, and together they invented
the glass paste which Tassie used for those famous
medallions in which he preserved the features of so
many eminent men of his age. Tassie was the first
to take a plaster cast of the celebrated Portland
Vase. In Kelvingrove Gallery are to be seen
numerous examples of his medallion portraits, and
one of his reproductions of the Portland Vase.
After the failure of the Foulis venture, there was
no attempt made for some time to cultivate art in
the city. A medical man may be said to have given
196
Adoration of The Magi Antondlo da Messina, 1460
Danae or The Tower of Brass Sir E. Btirne-Jone*
a fresh impetus to the latent aesthetic sense when,
in 1807, the celebrated Dr. William Hunter be-
queathed to the University of Glasgow the collec-
tions, literary and artistic, formed by him. The
collection embraced, in addition to Natural History,
a valuable library of early printed books and MSS.,
a remarkable series of coins and medals, portfolios
of engravings, and a small cabinet of pictures.
An appropriate building was erected for the con-
servation and display of the Hunter relics, and thus,
at an early period in the nineteenth century, a
small but carefully selected collection of pictures
was made available for the public of Glasgow. The
efforts of the Foulis brothers were premature. They
were put forth just as the city was " birsin yont "
upon its great industrial and commercial career.
But now wealth was abundant, and with it came
that cultured leisure which fosters art. In 1821
an influential body of merchant princes formed an
" Institution for the Promoting and Encouraging
of the Fine Arts in the West of Scotland." The
functions of this institution were limited to holding
exhibitions in two successive years, 1821-1822.
Three years subsequently the Glasgow Dilettante
Society was formed (1825), and in 1828 held its
first West of Scotland Exhibition of the works of
living artists. The exhibitions of this society con-
tinued in regular succession until 1838, in which
year it ceased to struggle for an unresponsive public.
Again, in 1840, a body was formed, under the name
of the West of Scotland Academy. It was com-
posed of artists and laymen, and held its first exhi-
bition in 1841, and its thirteenth and last in
197
1853. A little later a new association was formed ,
whose primary aim was to provide a building in
which art exhibitions could be carried on. Two-
exhibitions were held in 1853-1854 and 1854-1855,
but the Crimean War was on, and art, as usual ,
had to take a back seat when " holy and righteous "
militarism ruled the roost.
In 1861 was held the first annual show of the
Institute of the Fine Arts. The object of this
association was, and is, to diffuse among all classes
a taste for art generally, but especially for contem-
porary art, and this purpose the Institute fulfils
by means of annual exhibitions. In the year ISTJfr
the Institute was incorporated under the Companies
Act, and in 1896 Queen Victoria, in recognition of
the services rendered to art during its thirty-six
years' existence, graciously empowered it to use the
title " Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts,"
by which it is now known. Around the exhibitions
of the Institute a native race of artists
rallied, and to them artists from afar were
attracted, and so have these exhibitions come to be
recognised and profoundly respected by art-lovers
as the exhibitions of " The Glasgow School."
In connection with the early history of the Cor-
poration Art Collection three names stand out con-
spicuously Archibald M'Lellan, William Ewing,
and John Graham-Gilbert. The permanent art
gallery of Glasgow became a realisation when, on
the 15th May, 1856, the Town Council resolved to-
acquire by purchase a block of buildings in Sauchie-
hall Street, with the collection of sculpture and
pictures at that time known as the M'Lellan Gal-
198
leries. Archibald M'Lellan was a coachbuilder.
He \vas more ; he was an aesthetic soul, a lover of
art, and a keen and discriminating judge of pic-
tures. The great work of his life was not coach-
building for " the great " ; it was the foundation
of what is now known as the M'Lellan collection of
pictures : he devoted a large slice of his life to the
accumulation of this remarkable collection.
The M'Lellan collection was formed during the
second quarter of the past century, and at a period
when the value and permanent importance of the
great masters were recognised by few, and when it
was not the fashion to patronise Rembrandt, Rubens,
and Raphael, and when it was quite unnecessary for
the recognition of culture to talk glibly of Botticelli
and the Bellini. It is to the everlasting credit of
M'Lellan that he recognised the true artistic value
of works of art when they were neglected by the
so-called " cultured " wiseacres and leaders of
taste ! It was the ambition of M'Lellan to establish
in Glasgow a gallery of art for the benefit of his
fellow-citizens, and to bequeath it for public use at
the time of his death.
On his decease, the Town Council, amid a storm
of opposition, agreed to purchase the buildings
erected by M'Lellan for 29,500, and the pictures
therein for 15,000. Thus what were the M'Lellan
Galleries became the Corporation Art Galleries.
Within a month of the purchase Mr. William
Ewing, in redemption of a pledge he had given
conditional on the completion of the acquisition,
presented thirty works ; and in 1874 the remainder
of his valuable collection passed to the Corporation,
199
and now forms a notable feature of the city's art
collection. The Ewing bequest was followed in
1877 by that of the widow of John Graham-Gilbert,
U.S.A., a collection of pictures of tremendous value.
Some little time after these acquisitions, the
Town Council thought it desirable to obtain expert
opinion upon their value, and Sir Charles Robinson,
Her Majesty's Surveyor of Pictures, was asked to
examine and report on the condition and value of
the works. I quote his concluding sentences : 'I
apprehend that the aggregate in Glasgow consti-
tutes the most interesting and valuable provincial
public collection in the kingdom ; nor do I think I
am exaggerating when I say that I think that the
Corporation Gallery, when better known, will take
rank as a collection of European importance."
Since that report was made many patriotic citizens
have added to the value of the collection. The
family of James Reid, of Hydepark Locomotive
Works, " in affectionate and grateful remembrance
of their father," gifted a collection of pictures which
had been acquired by the father at a cost of
22,723. In this gift are included Corot's master-
piece, " Pastorale, Souvenir d'ltalie," Turner's
" Modern Italy," and Israel's " Frugal Meal."
To the art wealth of Glasgow, following upon
the Reid gift, there have to be added numerous
and important gifts and bequests, which have added
to the comprehensiveness and importance of the
Corporation Art Galleries. Among these gifts
are the Donald Collection, valued at about
40,000, comprising pictures by Millet, Corot,
Turner, Orchardson, Troyon, and Dupre; the
200
Going to Work Jean Francois Millet
The Forerunner Sir John Millais, P.R.A.
Sinellie Collection of fifty-three pictures, embracing
examples of water-colours of Turner, David Cox,
George Barrett, Cattermole, Peter de Wint, Blom-
mers, Maris, Israels, and Neuhuys ; the Teacher
bequest, comprising 117 pictures of the modern
British and Continental schools ; twenty-three pic-
tures given under the deed of assignation by Bailie
A. G. Macdonald, and of high importance as ex-
amples of the most eminent of our local artists ;
and other important bequests and gifts, such as the
Graham Young, Mrs. Janet Eodger, the Misses
Anderson, the Alexander Hill, Sir Charles Tennant,
William Connal, James Orrock, Miss Urquhart,
Mrs. Walker, Mrs. John Elder, Mrs. J. C. Arnot,
and Mr. W. A. Sandby, who gifted five fine water-
colours by Paul Sandby, the father of British water-
colour painting.
The crowning achievement of Glasgow was the
erection in Kelvingrove Park of the Art Galleries
and Museum, which was inaugurated as the central
Art Gallery of the city of Glasgow on the 25th
October, 1902. In connection with and under the
administration of Kelvingrove, there are four dis-
trict museums Camphill, People's Palace, Toll-
cross, and Mosesfield. How these institutions are
appreciated by the citizens is demonstrated by the
number of visitors. In 1921 the visitors to Kelvin-
grove numbered 2,114,000, and the total for the
three institutions was close upon three millions.
While the art wealth of Glasgow has been grow-
ing steadily through gifts and benefactions, direct
purchases by the Corporation continue to add signifi-
cant and important features. Among the more
201
outstanding purchases of recent years made by the
Art Galleries Committee of the Corporation have
been Whistler's " Carlyle," Ruben's " Boar
Hunt," Walter Crane's " Briar Rose," Strang's
" Nymph and Shepherd," and Nicholson's " Car-
olina." Last year a Print Department was added
to the Kelvingrove Galleries. Many valuable gifts
of etchings and drawings have been forthcoming,
and among the more prominent were over three
hundred prints of Durer, Rembrandt, Ostade,
Meryon, Cameron, Bone, and so on, from John
Innes ; large and important collections from John
Currie, Miss Walton, Richard Edmiston, W. A.
Walcot ; and fifty fine and rare prints from the late
William Strang.
In a word, the Glasgow Gallery is one of which
the citizens have just reason to be proud. It must
be taken into account in reckoning the art wealth
of the race ; and it affords valuable material for
tracing the history of the leading schools of Euro-
pean art from the sixteenth century to the present
day.
202
ECCLESIASTICAL GLASGOW IN
PRE-REFORMATION TIMES.
By JOHN EDWARDS, LL.D.
GLASGOW, as a city, has its roots in the Christian
Church. The stream known as the " Mellindonor "
(now Molindinar, and entirely covered over) and the
sloping green banks on its sides were inducing
factors leading St. Ninian, ere the Romans had left
Britain to consecrate with missionary zeal a Chris-
tian cemetery here. This cemetery, with its little
chapel among the heather, was the nucleus from
which Glasgow sprang. In the sixth century the
patron saint St. Kentigern, known by his endear-
ing appellation St. Mungo is found re-establishing
Christianity on the earlier foundation. St. Mungo
was a contemporary of St. Columba, and the two are
said to have met at the Molindinar, and the great
city " owes its existence to the earthen rath and
wattled church which St. Kentigern erected by the
Mellindonor stream, beside the old cemetery of St.
Ninian."
For five hundred years thereafter records are
wanting, and we are brought down to the twelfth
century, the reign of David I. The West of Scot-
land became for several hundred years, between the
death of St. Kentigern and the accession of King
Malcolm Ceanmore, a prey to invading Picts, Danes,
203
Scots, and Saxons. But the old population
remained, and whenever settled Government was
assured the Christian Church again raised its head.
Indeed, its influence was instrumental in establish-
ing a more peaceful rtate.
King David caused inquiry to be made into the
earlier possessions of the See, and a Cathedral was
raised and dedicated to St. Kentigern. Its conse-
cration took place upon 7th July, 1136. Of this
building nothing remains above ground. But about
sixty years after a second Cathedral was erected
upon the site of the former, during the episcopate
of Bishop loscelin, and was dedicated in 1197. Of
it some relics are still visible.
The Church as a living, active force in early
Glasgow is thus clearly indicated. It brought
cathedral builders here and collected funds for the
pious work. These were expended as they came in,
and, as Scotland was a poor country with a com-
paratively small population, the building went on
by fits and starts for upwards of three hundred
years.
One of the early bishops, Herbert, who was conse-
crated in 1147, is notable for having caused to be
written a " Life of St. Kentigern," of which
unfortunately, only a fragment survives. He also
made researches into the past history of the See,
and devoted attention to the constitution of the
Cathedral chapter, which he based on that of Sarum.
The bishops of Glasgow are, with few exceptions,
men who played an important part in the history
of the country. As prelates and as lords of barony
and regality they occupied a high position locally,
204
and through the favour of the successive Kings of
Scotland, and in virtue of their education and
abilities, they were trusted advisers holding in many
cases high administrative offices in the realm. The
ecclesiastical history of Glasgow in pre-Reformation
times centres in the Cathedral and its bishops.
There were no monasteries, properly so-called, here.
The Dominicans or Black-friars had a friary in High
Street, on the east side, and west of that street were
situated the house and garden of the Franciscans or
Grey-friars. These latter arrived towards the end
of the fifteenth century, and although they belonged
to the Observantine or Reformed branch of the
Order, yet they were not successful in preventing
the breaking out of the storm which in a few years
swept them and the Dominicans away.
But some words must be said regarding the pre-
Reformatioii Church in Glasgow as a patriotic and
enlightening asset. In the War of Independence
the clergy sided with Bruce, and in a special manner
Robert Wischart, Bishop of Glasgow (1271-1316),
known as the warrior bishop, championed the popu-
lar cause, and he was not without local followers in
this contest. It is safe to say that ecclesiastical
support in the West of Scotland contributed largely
to the successful issue of the struggle. In difficult
circumstances, created in great part by the murder
of John Comyn, the clergy followed the lead of
Bishop Wischart, and thus religious sanction, which
counted for much, was given to the fight for
freedom.
Bishop Walter Wardlaw, who ruled the diocese
for twenty years, at the end of the fourteenth
205
century, was Secretary to King David II., and had
been a Lecturer on Philosophy in the University of
Paris. As Scotland adhered to the Anti-Pope dur-
ing the great Schism, he was created a cardinal by
Clement VII. in 1383. He and Cardinal David
Beaton are the only Scottish cardinals known to
history in pre-Reformation times.
Another prominent prelate who did much to
increase the prestige of the little city was Bishop
William Turnbull (1447-1464). He obtained from
King James II., who was an honorary canon of the
Cathedral, a grant of the city and barony of
Olasgow, and lands of Bishop's Forest in pure
regality, thus becoming as a secular noble still more
powerful within his diocese. This additional power
and influence he used to good purpose for the
advancement of the city, both in learning and com-
merce. Turnbull, as is well known, procured the
Bull of Nicholas V. (7th January, 1451) founding
the University.
From these examples, taken at random, the con-
clusion may be drawn that the protection and
fostering care of a succession of powerful ecclesi-
astics, many of them statesmen in high office, were
of great value to the community. It should be
noted as an indication of the increasing dignity and
importance of the See that during the episcopate
of Robert Blacader (1483-1508) Glasgow was raised
to the dignity of a Metropolitan church, and he
became archbishop, with the Bishops of Dunkeld,
Dunblane, Galloway, and Lismore (Argyll) as suf-
fragans. At this period the See was, in wealth and
-dignity, at its highest. The chapter numbered
206
thirty-three members, being the largest in Scotland.
Each prebendary had a separate prebend besides his
share, as a canon, of the Cathedral in the common
estate. Some fifty years afterwards the fact that
there were now two archiepiscopal Sees in Scotland
lied to disgraceful scenes in the Cathedral of
Glasgow.
The sixteenth century ushers in the coming of the
Reformation. But the ecclesiastical activity in
Glasgow at that time gave little indication of the
impending collapse of the old Church. In the
fifteenth century there was throughout Scotland a
revival in church building, but it did not extend
to Glasgow. At the beginning of the following
century, however, two religious foundations were
instituted. The first was a hospital and chaplainry,
founded by Roland Blacader, Sub-Dean of Glasgow,
and a nephew of Archbishop Blacader. Minute
details of the provisions of the foundation are pre-
served, and are set forth in Renwick's and Lindsay's
" History of Glasgow." The hospital, situated
outside the North Port of the city, is described as
" a house of the poor and indigent casually coming
thereto." The second was the collegiate foundation
on the south side of St. Tenew's-gate (now Tron-
gate), dedicated to the Virgin Mary and to her
mother, St. Anne. Its founder was James
Houstoun, Sub-Dean of Glasgow from 1527 till
1551. This was a very important gift to the
Church, and the building must have been spacious,
as its full equipment by 1548 consisted of a provost,
eleven canons or prebendaries, and three choristers.
But this religious zeal came too late, and little
207
more than ten years after the completion of this
foundation the Protestant Reformation overturned
the Eoman Church in Scotland. One of the im-
mediate effects was a diminution of the importance
and outward prosperity of Glasgow. A large source
of its wealth had been connected with the Church
and its ceremonial observances, and after the
Reformation there remained at first nothing to take
its place. The numerous and well-appointed
manses of the beneficed clergv and the houses of
the Dominicans and Franciscans were in the neigh-
bourhood of the Cathedral. With the change of
religion the great majority of the clergy and friars
took their departure or were expelled. Their habi-
tations were left deserted, and thus one of the most
flourishing and pleasant quarters of the town soon
became ruinous.
But our citizens did not sit still under this tem-
porary depression. Action was taken, measures
were devised to restore the trade of the town. A
commission was appointed by Act of the Scottish
Parliament, and this resulted in bringing back in
some measure the commercial importance of the
north part of the city, and bv and by other sources
were developed, so that in the advancing progress of
the country Glasgow had its full share.
208
BUSINESS LIFE IN GLASGOW.
A RUN ROUND THE EXCHANGES.
By G. B. PRIMROSE.
MOTORING into Glasgow from almost any point of the
compass you read the same story on the passing mile-
stones. It is so many miles to Glasgow Royal
Exchange. Why has the Royal Exchange been
singled out for this distinction? Well, it was in
existence before any of the great railway termini in
Glasgow, before the University rose proudly on its
present site, before the Municipal Buildings spread
themselves across all one side of George Square. But
principally is it advertised at every mile of road run-
ning north and south and east and west, because it
is the hub of the many-spoked wheel of Glasgow
commerce.
It is commerce that has made Glasgow big and
wealthy. Take away its commerce and you take
away the mainspring of its being. Fitting is it,
therefore, that people should regard the very heart
of the city as that place where the representatives of
all the leading trades and industries can daily come
together. There is no need to describe the history
or architectural features of Glasgow Eoyal Exchange.
Sufficient is it to say on these points that the high-
roofed and impressively pillared hall in which an
important part of the world's business affairs is
P 209
transacted faces Queen Street, and partly occupies
the site a hundred or more years ago of an old-world
garden.
THE UNIVEKSAL PROVIDER.
One has talked of business being done in Glasgow
Eoyal Exchange. What kind of business? If you
are wishing to build an ocean liner, go into the Royal
Exchange and you will meet members of several
firms willing to make the steel plates for it. If you
are wanting timber for its decks or sheets for its
ventilators, you will almost instantly knock up
against the people who can provide these needs.
Perhaps you have a cargo of coal to send to South
America. In the Royal Exchange you will find
many men eager to ship it for you. Or perhaps you
yourself are a shipowner, and are looking for a cargo.
There is no place you are more likely to pick it up
than on the floor of the Royal Exchange. Firms with
great blast furnaces for the production of pig-iron,
firms that turned out a heavy proportion of the
British munitions used in winning the war, firms
owning rich coalfields, firms with whole fleets of
steamers at their disposal, machinery makers, whisky
producers, shale oil manufacturers, cotton mer-
chants the representatives of all are dailv jostling
shoulders with each other in the crowded floors of the
Glasgow Royal Exchange.
Time was when the merchant princes of Glasgow
were not content to be merely represented on
'Change. They attended daily in person. Then,
according to unofficial history, the passports for
admission through the building's portals were a frock
coat, a silk hat, and a membership card. Now, two
210
of these adjuncts are seldom seen. The membership
card is open sesame enough. Exchange business
devolves largely on sales managers and other mem-
bers of the staff rather than on the principals. It
is said that the telephone was responsible for bring-
ing this change about. When the head of a firm
wants to transact business with other Tieads of firms,
he does not require, as in the old days, to hunt them
up on 'Change. He merely tells his clerk to ring
them up.
KEGTJLATION WEAR.
All the same, the Eoyal Exchange includes the
names of many wealthy and also well-to-do men on
its membership. This was frequently seen in the
bumper response to war funds in the years of the
great conflict, and it is seen in the stylish total sub-
scribed in the Royal Exchange Derby sweepstakes.
As a rule, no sartorial clue is given by the men of
money in the Royal Exchange. Men who have
shuffled about its floors in shabby garb for years
very often cause a much bigger sensation after they
are buried than they ever did alive. That is when
it requires six figures to represent their fortune under
the headline " Glasgow Estates " in the local daily
press. The most striking examples of the tailor's
art are generally sported by youths who occupy quite
minor positions in the firms that they represent.
But, as a rule, in these cases there are affluent
parents in the background. On the whole, however,
Glasgow's workaday business men make no effort to
emulate the sartorial splendours of Goodwood. Plain
serviceable jacket suits are the prevailing wear. The
bowler hat is the regulation headgear. With a few
211
exceptions, members affect a topper only on the
occasion of a civic reception or a funeral, and then
they appear self-consciously on the floor of the Room
and are shyly approached by their business friends.
It is as though a barrier were raised between them.
Next day the old familiar garb is again in evidence,
and with a sigh of relief business relationships and
coffees for two are re-established on the oloTbasis.
THE HAUNT OF THE STOCKBROKER.
While the Glasgow Royal Exchange embodies
within its own pillared confines a coal exchange, an
iron and steel exchange, an oil exchange, a shipping
exchange, and various other exchanges too numerous
to mention, there is at least one thing it does not do.
It affords no facilities for dealing in stocks and
shares. The stockbrokers of Glasgow have an ex-
change all of their own. It is a modern building
admirably situated in Buchanan Street and St.
George's Place, and is claimed to be the second
largest and second most important Stock Exchange
in the United Kingdom. Which, of course, is just
as should be in the Second City. It is unfortunately
not possible for the writer to give a guaranteed
authentic description of the Glasgow Stock Exchange
at work. Uniformed men guard all the entrances,
and it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye
of a needle than for an outsider to pass through the
Stock Exchange portals. What goes on inside is.
largely a matter of guesswork and conjecture.
Speaking in vulgar parlance, business is usually in
the nature of a hunger or a burst. During the
months of hunger members are supposed to take in
212
each other's washing for a living. This is a pleasant
fiction. During the fat times, when the public have
money to burn, the majority of stockbrokers make
more than sufficient to tide them over the times of
leanness. The most familiar adjective that goes with
stockbroker is wealthy. Most of them reside stock-
brokers never stay or dwell in fashionable spas such
as Helensburgh, Troon, Kilmalcolm, and Bearsden.
It has never been definitely established whether
these resorts were created in order to provide Glasgow
stockbrokers; with suitable mansions, or whether
Glasgow Stock Exchange was created to provide for
residents of these favoured spots a calling of suit-
able rank.
THROUGH THE WINDOWS.
The chief recreations of Glasgow stockbrokers, in
addition to making fortunes for their clients in oil
shares, are yachting on the Firth of Clyde, motoring
to Turnberry and Gleneagles, and describing in
minute detail how they went round in one under
bogey. On warm summer days, when the windows of
the Stock Exchange are thrown open, pedestrians
in Buchanan Street are sometimes alarmed by the
fierce roar from the interior between the hours of
10.45 and 1 and 2 and 3. This is understood to be
feeding time for the, bulls and bears retained in large
numbers in the establishment, though alternatively
it may be the baffled cry of disappointed stags when
a new issue opens at a discount instead of a premium.
No Glasgow stockbroker ever golfs on Sunday during
a Stock Exchange boom. He has to attend office
that day to overtake the immense rush of orders the
preceding week has brought forth.
213
WHERE THE GRAIN MEN MEET.
Members of the grain trade and others connected
with things agricultural have an Exchange in
Glasgow also. It is in two portions one the sedate
Corn Exchange in Hope Street, and the other the
commodious Central Station of the Caledonian Rail-
way on the other side of the same thoroughfare.
Possibly because the fees are cheaper a bold face
and a confident manner the Central Station as an
Exchange enjoys great popularity. This popularity
shows no signs of falling off despite frequent forcible
printed reminders by the railway company that this
weekly Wednesday congregation in its precincts is an
unwarrantable liberty, and despite the efforts of the
station police to move the bucolic gentlemen on.
Inside and outside of the Corn Exchange opposite
flour millers and grain merchants talk all day in
terms of bolls, and spring wheat and Manitoban
flour, and samples are so freely spilled 011 the steps
that the fluttering pigeons of Hope Street are among
the feathered sights of the city.
There are great business offices in Glasgow that
do not require to be represented on any of the Ex-
changes the headquarters of insurance companies,
of banks, and of legal and other professional firms.
Unlike many other towns and cities, especially in
countries overseas, there are few social distinctions
among the business folks in Glasgow. The owner of
the big villa and the occupant of the small flat meet
on terms of friendly equality on the bowling green,
and the prosperous shipowner paying income tax on
thousands a year cheerfully plays in the same rink
214
as the junior clerk of the firm next door. A sociable
and friendly soul the business man of Glasgow one
who saves himself a lot of mental worry by not
bothering whether his neighbour is the kind of person
he really ought to know.
216
GLASGOW FROM THE ARTISTS'
POINT OF VIEW.
By R. J. MacLENNAN.
IT matters not how or when this came to be written.
Enough that it is an impression of Glasgow by one
of its early historians
" In the Nether Ward of Clydesdale and shire
of Lanark stands deliciously on the banks
of the Biver Clyde the city of Glasgow,
which is generally believed to be, of its
bigness, the most beautiful city of the
world, and is acknowledged to be so by all
foreigners that come thither."
Obviously, the local historian who wrote that
description had a positively joyous prejudice. In
patriotism, as in hospitality, your Scot scorns haJlf-
measures. M'Ure was no exception. He wrote out
of the fulness of his heart, and, be it marked,
with due respect to his conscience. " The most
beautiful city of the world," said he, and gaily
passed on the responsibility for the statement by
prefacing the declaration with the phrase, "it is
generally believed." We in Glasgow thank him
for those words. We may to-day find it difficult to
accept them as a true and proper estimate, but we
love to quote them, and if, in face of criticism, we
216
jg
50
2
are prepared to modify them, we do so only in so
far as a writer of later date showed us how when
he wrote
" A city old, and somewhat plain of face,
Yet some there are who, with a lover's eye,
Are quick to mark an unexpected grace,
Where strangers would indifferent pass by.
May it be yours for a brief spell to share
Old Glasgow's smites to pierce her veil of grey
That screens her charms from hurried eyes to bear
The best of her in memory away ! "
Among those who have viewed the city " with a
lover's eye " may be counted her own artists, and
others who, if not native, have had qualities that
all but won for them that high distinction ! There
is quite a crowd of them. Regard them for -i
moment, and Sam Bough, R.S.A., the intimate
friend of the late Sir Henry Irving and Mr. J. L.
Toole, comes stepping out to greet you. The
memories of Bough that still survive are as refresh-
ing and breezy as one of his own water-colours, as
mellow as his canvases of Cadzow Forest or Loch
Achray.
Glasgow was his artistic foster-mother, his love
for the city lasting and sincere. In his early youth
he was a scene-painter, one of an interesting group
who have travelled, via the painting-loft above the
flies, to the galleries of fame. The late Thomas
Sidney Cooper, R.A., was a scene-painter; so were
David Roberts, R.A., Clarkson Stansfield, R.A.,
and William Wells, among the moderns. One
might name many others.
Sam Bough's water-colour drawings of Victoria
217
and Broomielaw Bridges, reproduced in these pages,
belong to the Corporation of Glasgow. They were
bequeathed to the citizens by the late Mr. A. G.
Macdonald, and are now housed, with pictures of
the Cathedral and the West End Park, among the
civic art treasures. The aspect of the bridges pic-
tured is changed to-day, yet in the essentials it is
the same.
Nature's colours may have " sunk " a little, and
the stream of traffic have become less picturesque,
yet Bough would probably have found them as in-
spiring as in the old days. With the touch of his
individuality he would have made them quite as
interesting, and you may note the soldiers he
certainly would have introduced the military, to
whom his heart warmed.
One of his best-known pictures is that of " The
First Scottish Review at Edinburgh " ; and con-
cerning another of his works an army crossing the
Solway there is a story to tell.
" What are you to call that? " asked a friend.
" Spears and Pond," was the reply.
Earlier than Bough, Glasgow had John Knox,
an artist more catholic in his tastes than his stern,
austere namesake of the Reformation. Knox
received his training from Alex. Nasymth, contem-
porary of Burns, and painter of the famous portraits
of the poet, only three of which are known to be in
existence. Knox, in turn, was art tutor to Horatio
M'Culloch, R.S.A., and Sir Daniel Macnee,
P.R.S.A. He found material within the city
boundary for more than one striking canvas ; and
that of " Bishop Rae's Bridge in 1817 " is not the
218
least important. Knox, in the intervals of work,
toured the country with panoramas of loch and city
scenery, Glasgow being first of these, followed by
others of Loch Lomond, Edinburgh, and Dublin.
Jules Lessore, the famous French artist, came
three times to paint Glasgow; but, with the excep-
tion of his " Broomielaw Bridge," now in a local
collection, his paintings were for the most part
without appeal to buyers. Yet their merit was out-
standing.
Etchings of Glasgow have found ready apprecia-
tion, notably those by D. Y. Cameron, Muirhead
Bone, Tom Maxwell, J. Hamilton Mackenzie,
and Susan Crawford. Miniature water-colours by
David Small and Crimean Simpson there is a
capital collection of these in the People's Palace,
Glasgow Green also aroused the interest of art-
lovers and archaeologists, but somehow, and un-
accountably, larger paintings have too frequently
proved to the artist that he must recompose his
palette and set up his easel beyond the city. This
experience is not peculiar to Glasgow.
Touching the water-colours of Crimean Simpson,
this artist, the pioneer war correspondent, whose
work for the Illustrated London News kept a genera-
tion familiar with the passing events of their day,
was born in Glasgow, his earliest inspirations being
found in the city streets and buildings, while his
first exhibited picture was " Garscadden Gates,"
the picturesque entrance to Garscadden House, to
the west of the Kelvin Dock.
Prior to leaving Glasgow for London in 1851, he
sketched the old remains of the city; and these
219
sketches were incorporated in the now rare volume,
" Stuart's Glasgow." Simpson, in his Auto-
biography, pays the tribute to the city of his birth
that it " awakened in him the instinct " for art and
archaeology.
His work in after years in the Crimea ; in India,
after the Mutiny ; and when on tour with King
Edward (then Prince of Wales) ; his achievements
in Afghanistan with the Boundary Commission; in
Magdala with Napier ; with the Germans in the
Franco-Prussian War, and among the Communists
in Paris, down to the Afghan Campaign, when he
was wounded during a fight in the Khyber Pass all
these are fascinating study ; and through his career
as an artist- journalist his heart warmed to the home-
land, and his admiration for the city was unquali-
fied.
The art of Crimean Simpson, by the way, was in
many instances unique. Lord Rosebery has in his
collection the drawing of " The Battle of Sedan,"
painted on the back of a strip of wallpaper ; while
his drawings of the jewels worn by ladies of the
harem in India are, quaintly enough, embalmed in
the old files of a silversmiths' trade journal.
Other examples of his art are in the national
collections of the British and South Kensington
Museums, and in the private collections of His
Majesty the King, the Duke of Newcastle, the
Marquis of Bute, the Earl of Northbrook, &c. The
artistic beauties of the city of Glasgow may claim
in Simpson's case the power of propagating mustard
seeds to the after-proportions the parable mentions.
Among Glasgow artists of later date who have
220
devoted themselves for a time to a survey of the city
ere pruning their wings for flight to Chelsea are
Sir John Lavery, R.A. ; and George Henry, R.A.,
but of their achievements more anon.
Among others are R. M. G. Coventry, James Kay,
William Kennedy, Harry Spence, Tom Hunt,
Robert Eadie, and Patrick Downie.
There is still one picture of Glasgow that awaits
the coming of an artist with the requisite power to
treat a spacious motif, and it is within a stone-throw
of the park painted by Henry. No one has pic-
tured the city as seen from the summit of Gilmore-
hill, where stands the University. Yet the view
to be obtained from this eminence, dimmed though
it may be on occasions by the smoke of myriad
activities, is impressive in its grandeur.
To the Clyde James Kay and Patrick Downie
have devoted themselves. A Clyde canvas by the
former artist was purchased by the French Govern-
ment for the Luxembourg Collection, while one by
the latter was bought by the Glasgow Corporation.
Tom Hunt and Eadie have specialised in city vistas,
and Kennedy in his time actually invested our city
with something of the sunny glory of the Moroccan
coast he knew so well.
Among those who have at one time or
another found inspiration in the Clyde scenes,
albeit principally beyond the confines of the
city, are numbered Gustave Dore, who visited
the West of Scotland in 1874; Rosa Bon-
heur, who followed later; and James Maris,
who came from Holland in 1886. The list of
Scottish artists includes Sir George Reid, R.S.A. ;
221
Sir Francis Powell, P.R.S.W. ; David Murray,
R.A. ; Milne Donald, A. Eraser, J. Docharty, J. W.
MacWhirter, R.A. ; A. K. Brown, A.R.S.A.,
and but the list is interminable.
Coventry's " Sauchiehall Street " (the English-
man's pronunciation test) gives a capital idea of one
of Glasgow's main thoroughfares the Regent Street
of the West of Scotland. Then, again, particular
interest attaches to Kennedy's " Glasgow Exhibi-
tion, 1901." Not only is the remembrance of the
" cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,"
quickened on surveying it, but in the foreground
are shown types of the foreigners whose gay garb
gave such a picturesque touch to the scene, while
citizens prominently identified with the promoting
of the successful enterprise are at once recognised.
Mr. Kennedy had a penchant for " events " in
Glasgow.
The list of occasional painters of Glasgow may be
extended to include J. Adam Houston, R.S.A.,
whose view of the city and the Cathedral, as seen
from the Necropolis, is well known.
Then there were Thomas Fairbairn, Horatio
M'Culloch, and William Leighton Leitch, R.I., a
Glasgow man who taught Queen Victoria the use of
water-colours, and for over twenty years instructed
the members of the Royal Family in painting.
Then there Avas John Lawson, who devoted his
attention to the outlook of toil and grime around the
Forth and Clyde Canal, or to the sylvan beauties of
Killerinont, the home of the Glasgow Golf Club.
That the city of St. Mungo has furnished material
for many pictures and has inspired the art of genera-
222
tions of painters down to the time of the Glasgow
School, in fact indicates that the claim to beauty
is we'll grounded. If anything were required to
prove it, surely the best possible proof lies in the
art history of its people, a history dealt with in
another chapter in this brochure.
It was a happy thought that suggested the adorn-
ment of the Banqueting Hall of the Municipal
Buildings with pictures of the city. The series
includes a fresco by George Henry, " King
William, the Lyon, granting the Charter to the
Authorities for the Institution of Glasgow Fair."
Then there is the panel, " Glasgow Fair in the
Olden Time," painted by E. A. Walton, flanked by
others painted by Alexander Roche and John
Lavery. The latter has treated a modern aspect of
the city with virility and originality, while the
former furnished a pleasing picture of an incident
in which the patron saint of Glasgow played an
important part. The incident is the basis of the
city arms.
In Eoche's and Walton's panels the figures were
friends of the artists. But George Henry went
further. The figures in his fresco are, many of
them, well-known public men in the West of Scot-
land the late Principal Storey of the University,
Sir Samuel Chisholm, the late Sir John Shearer,
the late Mr. Brogan (a popular member of the
Glasgow Art Club), and many others may be picked
out in the group. Concerning Mr. Henry's fresco,
on the last occasion when Sir Henry Irving
visited Glasgow, he called at the City Chambers,
and, on entering the Banqueting Hall, stood for
223
some time looking at the fresco and voicing his
admiration.
" It was on that picture I modelled my grouping
in ' Becket,' " he said. " From the first time I
saw it it remained with me. Is there a reproduc-
tion of it to be had ? ' '
The answer was in the affirmative ; and the copy
printed at the head of this article was presented to
him at the King's Theatre that evening.
Reference has been made to etchers who found in
Glasgow the first thrill of the impetus that moved
them forward towards the enviable position they
hold to-day. Among them Muirhead Bone, in par-
ticular, stands prominent. Yet it was many years
before he was honoured in his native town. That,
however, is by the way. Glasgow is proud of her
artists. In no less degree her artists are proud of
Glasgow.
224
GLASGOW: A FRONTIER POST.
By GEORGE BLAKE.
THE visitor to Glasgow stands in no need of literary
reminders that lie is on the borders of the Scottish
Highlands. The fact is bawled at him by the adver-
tisements of railway and steamboat companies ; the
names above the shops cry out to him for recognition
of their Celtic origin. There are more " Campbells "
than "Smiths" in Glasgow; the accent of the
Glasgow people has the falling intonation of the
west. From the summits of the many hills on which
the city is built the eye of the observer is ever held
by the near beauty of the Highland hills that over-
look the Clyde.
It is not the least fascinating feature of journeying
through this country of Britain that he who journeys
traverses dialects as well as shires. There is for the
traveller more abiding interest in variation of lan-
guage and racial type than in the straightest line of
demarcation ever traced by the Boundary Commis-
sioners. It is a truer satisfaction to reflect that one
has passed from the district where " lad " is pro-
nounced " laad " to that where it is delivered as
"laud" than merely to know by the map that one
has travelled from Cumberland into Dumfries.
This interest, in Britain, does not end with dialect ;
we have our language problem as well. At least
Q 225
three tongues are spoken in this island. It is a fact
that the two less popular conventions have dialectical
variations ; the Gaelic of Skye rings hard and strange
to a Lome ear, for instance; but we who have no
command over these primitive, if interesting, modes
can only regard them as other tongues than ours,
and, as such, complete. Our interest is to note
where, geographically, our own speech ends and the
other speech begins.
English, of course, is practically universal now.
Here and there in the Hebrides live old men and
women who have not a word of the southern speech
at their command; all over the Highlands are folks
who handle our tongue with difficulty; and it is
probabily so in Wales. Mono-lingualism is the
exception in the Celtic province* now. But it
remains picturesquely true that in such parts of the
world, the native language, the Gaelic, is still the
vehicle of everyday use. How that state of affairs
will be modified by the adoption of modern practices
in the field and in the home: how far the strong
movement on behalf of the preservation of the old
tongues will prevail, it is not our interest here to
conjecture. We are, or ought to be, content with
the fascinating fact that in odd corners of our island
foreign people of foreign temperament, expressing
themselves naturally in foreign tongues, hold out
still against our vigorous Anglo-Saxondom. If we
are of a mind to consider such conditions as worthy
of a passing thought, we shall find a treasure
of romance in all our transactions on the fringe and
within the province of Gaeldom.
It happens that for the most part in Scotland
226
Stirling Castle
Callander and Ben Ledi
Bridge of Allan
those borders are clearly defined. At many points
they are marked with the clarity of a wire fence
almost. There, where East meets West, so to speak,
this bi-lingualistic romance is found at its most
intense.
In the extreme West, particularly, the Highland
line is a thing to be crossed in half an hour's walk.
Theoretically, the Firth of Clyde is the boundary.
If you are in Greenock, say the geographers, you
are in the Lowlands; if you row two miles across
the Firth to Eosneath you have entered the High-
lands. Really, it is not so. The Lowlands have
spread their influence further afield than that,
especially during the last half-century, so that now
it is necessary (ignoring the patchy canton of Cowal)
to go so far afield as the peninsula of Kintyre to
discover a dramatically abrupt transition from
Anglo-Saxon to Celtic conditions.
At Tarbert, Loch Fyne there are scores of Tar-
bert's and Tarbet's in the Highlands, signifying
.a narrow neck of land the line of demarcation is,
perhaps, most thin. Here the long peninsula is
deeply indented by the two lochs, West Loch Tarbert
and East Loch Tarbert, separated by little more than
a mile of land. There is no natural barrier of any
significance between the two sheets of water; indeed,
a good and busy road connects them; but to cross
that road is, for the traveller, to pass from home into
foreign country. On the Loch Fyne side their speech
has the Gaelic intonation, it is true but that is all
that is characteristically Highland about the town
of Tarbert. Its relationship with industrial Clyde-
side has too long been close. It is irrevocably com-
227
mercialised ; and so are the people. The glamour of
the Celtic inflection fades away before the assault
committed on your romanticism by tennis courts,
bowling greens, and a picture house or two.
Thus Tarbert East. You can leave it and it is
seemly so to do either on foot or on a vehicle, and
fare a mile across country to the pier at West Loch
Tarbert. It is a process, either way, that is full of
glamour for the right sort of observer. You set
out in the atmosphere of industrialism. In Tarbert
East the people are busy at their affairs of money-
making loading ships, building ships, and selling
picture postcards and they converse in a dialect
that would be unremarkable in Glasgow. The driver
of the brake hails acquaintances in the doric " A
gran' day, Donald." Then he takes the reins and
drives his horses across the isthmus. Twenty
minutes later he is saying " Tha la briagh ann " to
the solitary man on the solitary pier at West Loch
Tarbert. Swans are floating round the piles of that
pier, and shaggy cattle stand knee-deep and solemn
in the marshy shallows at the head of the loch. It
is very quiet. You know yourself to be in the heart
of the old Highlands. If you care, the little
steamer will take you off to the Islands where they
converse with difficulty in English. Higher up this
peninsula of Kintyre is another point where a main
route changes its nature, as it were, as suddenly and
dramatically within the space of a few miles. In
this case Ardrishaig and Crinan are the pillars of the
gateway. Some half-dozen miles apart, they are
centuries apart in time. The one is wholly, even
sordidly Lowland the picture house and the slum
228
The Old Brig o' Doon, Ayr
Glen Sannox, Arran
The Monument, Glencoe
A bit of picturesque Killin
are there; the other consists of two or three white
cottages, a hotel, and a post office, where any demand
above half a crown in value is liable to exhaust the
stock of stamps. Theoretically, the Canal ought
to make of Crinan a busy terminus, but Crinan only
acquires the more romance from the passing of the
lighters and smacks, manned by leisurely islanders,
that go to and fro with the homely merchandise
of the Hebrides.
Elsewhere in Scotland the boundary line is broader
and less clearly drawn made by a range of hills, a
valley, or even a shire. As time goes on the ten-
dency is for every line to grow less and less distinct.
Finally, perhaps, the lichenous growth of indus-
trialism will spread over the existing frontiers and
envelop Crinan and West Loch Tarbert, and go on
pushing the old and the beautiful farther and farther
back until the dead, dull level of the commonplace is
everywhere attained. The paradox of progress
. . . But it may be that the very poverty of the
waste places will be their future salvation as it is
our present joy. Surely there will be here a loch
that cannot be tamed into driving turbines and here
a hill that is not made of iron ore ; and on the shores
of the one, surely, and on the slopes of the other will
be found those who speak a tongue older and plainer
than ours, and practise a habit of life that is based
on simplicity. The frontier of language, at least,
is the last that will be passed.
229
GLASGOW AS A GOLFING CENTRE.
By W. STEWART.
THE value of golf in preventive and curative
medicine might well furnish a text for discussion
at the meetings of the B.M.A. There are few sub-
jects upon which so many members of the profession
could speak with the authority of experience, and
fewer upon which so unanimous a decision would be
reached. But it is not on the agenda for the Glasgow
meetings ; and I, as a layman, do not propose to
offer a lead here. My business is rather to present
in briefest outline the history of the game in Glasgow
and neighbourhood, and to indicate the various
courses over which visitors to the annual meeting
may have the privilege of playing in the odd hours
they can spare (or steal) from the business gather-
ings. In one matter they are lucky: July is held as
holiday in Glasgow with a unanimity unequalled in
any city in the United Kingdom, so there will be no
crowding on the courses at whatever hour the doctors
may wish to disport themselves there.
Let it be premised that golf has been played in
Glasgow for centuries certainly since long before
James VI. carried its civilising influence south
in 1603. Town and Church records testify
to the fact. So far as is known, it was
played oh the Green, an area lying along
230
the north bank of the Clyde, the greater part
of which, as it originally existed, has now been built
over. Latterly the game was played on what is now
known as the Green, though authentic information
on the exact locality of the course is now exceedingly
difficult to come by. The earliest mention of play
on our oldest open space is contained in a poem pub-
lished in 1721, and written by a student at the old
University named Arbuckle. This gentleman was
evidently a player of some experience, who must
have seen many games, and must also have had a
shrewd head and an observant mind. After telling
how the players " the timber curve to leathern orbs
apply," Mr. Arbuckle proceeds
Intent his ball the eager gamester eyes,
His muscles strains, and various postures tries,
Th' impelling blow to strike with greater force,
And shape the motive orb's projectile course.
If with due strength the weighty engine fall,
Discharg'd obliquely, and impinge the ball,
It winding mounts aloft, and sings in air ;
And wond'ring crowds the gamester's skill declare.
But when some luckless wayward stroke descends,
Whose force the ball in running quickly spends,
The foes triumph, the club is cursed in vain ;
Spectators scoff, and ev'n allies complain.
Thus still success is followed with applause :
But ah ! how few espouse a vanquished cause.
Golfing human nature has not changed much in these
two centuries.
Curiously enough, no mention of the game in
Glasgow is to be found in the Autobiography of
"Jupiter" Carlyle, although he was a student at
our University in 1743-4-5. This is a remarkable
omission, for Jupiter must have played golf while
231
here. He was proud of his golfing prowess he calls
golf " the game in which I excelled and took much
pleasure " and he records the astonishment created
when, years later, at Garrick's villa at Hampton
Court, he made a ball travel at the end of his drive
through an archway into the Thames as he under-
took to do once out of three times. Golf was,
however, probably played continuously throughout
the centuries on the people's pleasaunce; and there
must early have been a club.
The first Glasgow Directory that for 1783 gives
a list of members of the Silver Golf Club, in all
likelihood the same body which is now the Glasgow
Golf Club. The silver club from which the body
derived its name is now preserved at Killermoiit, the
city course of the Glasgow Club of to-day for the
society is in the unique position in Britain of having
two full courses thirty miles apart, the other being
at Gailes on the Ayrshire coast. This valuable, but
for practical purposes woefully inefficient, implement
carries a number of the balls which it was then the
duty of the member of the club who played his way
to the captaincy to supply. Each ball bears the name
of a captain and the year of his achievement. The
members of the club in the eighteenth century repre-
sented largely the aristocracy of commerce ; hence
the then extravagance of the silver club. After an
interval of dormancy between 1835 and 1870 the
Society was reconstituted; and the custodian of the
silver club, satisfied of the lineage, handed the
trophy over to the existing Glasgow Club. It forms
an interesting and artistic link with the local golfers
of the eighteenth century. Another object of attrac-
232
tion in the Killermont clubhouse is the collection of
old implements of the game, clubs and balls, from
the primitive feather ball the " leathern orb " of
the poet to the rubber-cored object of controversy
of the present day. In the opinion of a golf writer
of wide knowledge, the collection has no equal any-
where.
Killermont (the second syllable of the name should
be stressed) is about five miles from the Royal
Exchange; but, though now denuded of some of its
encircling woods, is still a very retired course of the
mansion-house policies order. It is laid out so as to
utilise the playing area to the fullest advantage,
the chief hazard for the wayward golfer being trees,
with the river Kelvin to catch tremendous pulls at
the first and second holes. The courtesy of the
course has been granted for the Ulster Cup competi-
tion, and it will also be available for visitors
privately, many of the local members of the Associa-
tion being members of the Glasgow Golf Club. But
it is only one of the many greens to which medical
members will be able to introduce visiting friends.
The most noteworthy of the other city courses is
Pollok, within the policies of Sir John Stirling-
Maxwell, which has recently been undergoing
changes owing to the withdrawal of one of the fields
previously forming part of the course. It has the
distinction of having been reconstructed by Dr.
Mackenzie, of Leeds, the famous golf architect,
whose skill in treating Mother Earth and causing
her wounds to heal as if they were Nature's work is
well known. It is situated half an hour's run south-
ward by tramway car from the centre of the city.
233
(Perhaps this is not strictly relevant information,
as medical men do not nowadays use the tramway
cars.) Most convenient of all the courses in mere
matter of proximity it is really within the city
is the Glasgow North- Western Club's ground
at Ruchill. But, indeed, there is no direction on
the outskirts of the city where one cannot find a
private course, though the quality of the different
greens may vary considerably.
On the middle heights that ring Glasgow round
are also courses picturesque in quality, bracing in
atmosphere, and affording wide views of the country.
To the north-west lies the rather inaccessible Miln-
gavie (Mulguy in local parlance), a fine stretch of
moorland overlooking the city and well worth the
trouble of attaining. To the south-west, occupying
an elevated position, with splendid vistas closed by
distant mountains, is Whitecraigs, a highly sporting
course traversed by burns burrowing in ravines. And
to the south-east, just beyond one of the city parks
of the same name, is the green of the Cathkiu Brnrs
Club, from which charming views can be obtained
of the Clyde valley with Dumbarton Rock in the
middle distance, and the mountains of Argyllshire
raising their peaks in the background.
In the more outlying regions are such alluring
courses as Erskine (which takes its title from the
estate of that name of which the adjacent mansion-
house is now the Scottish Hospital for Limbless ex-
Service Men), the clubkouse of which overlooks
the river Clyde, and the architectural features of
which have just been treated by Dr. Mackenzie;
Kilmacolm, and the two courses at Bridge of Weir,
234
which provide excellent training for Alpinists. They
all stand high, are covered with fine turf, and possess
sporting qualities of a high order.
All the courses that have been mentioned are so
accessible as to allow of a round on a spare morning
or afternoon. But medical men from a distance
attending the conference may wish to devote a day
or two, or even a week or two, to the game after
business has been finished. For such there is a great
wealth of the finest golfing country within easy
reach of Glasgow. First, there is the course at Glen-
eagles, little more than an hour away, which J. H.
Taylor so aptly and so admirably characterised as
majestic. Once, when on the way there for his first
visit, a friend suggested to me that Gleneagles could
not possibly be so good as the newspapers alleged ;
and I could only reply with the cautious Asquithian
advice. On the way home the erstwhile doubter
confessed that the most enthusiastic description
failed to do justice to the great qualities of the place.
Gleneagles is a course for the young man rejoicing
in his strength and his length, and for him only if
he keeps the line. Heather is a formidable hazard.
But it is a course that every golfer of every age
should see.
It is not, however, only as a centre of inland golf
that Glasgow is fortunately situated. Within an
hour and a quarter of the city there are on the
Glasgow and South-Western Railway a dozen of
first-class private courses lying almost end to end
along the Ayrshire coast. Beginning with Bogside,
about 30 miles away, almost every station on the
line to Ayr is the stopping-place for one or more
235
of these links. At Gailes the golfer detrains for no
fewer than three courses. On the left is the coast
green of the Glasgow Club, and farther south that
of the Dundonald Club. Across the railway opposite
to these is the enticing-looking green of the Western
Club. At Barassie is the links of the Kilmarnock
Club; at Troon, besides the ladies' course, there are
two courses (in addition to the three very excellent
and testing links belonging to the municipality),
and one of them, usually spoken of as Old Troon,
seems likely to come into the championship rota in
place of Muirfield, the Honourable Company being
disinclined to continue the duty of " housing " the
championship. At Prestwick is the most famous of
all the "Western links, where two months ago the
great struggle for the amateur championship
attracted unprecedented enthusiasm. Here also are
the courses of the St. Nicholas and St. Cuthbert Clubs.
Then about twenty miles farther on is the Turnberry
links, which, in spite of its length, has always had
a peculiar attraction for the ladies, and has accom-
modated more than one of their championships.
This enumeration covers only the better-known
links; there are many others along the Ayrshire
coast ; and he will be an exceedingly exacting golfer,
indeed, who cannot find some place to his liking
where he may wear off, with club and ball, the
exhaustion of the strenuous work of the Association
meetings.
23G
THE GLASGOW SCHOOL OF
MEDICINE.
By JOHN PATRICK.
THE Glasgow School of Medicine may be said to
have arisen at a very definite date, 1599, and to have
been founded by one definite personality Peter
Lowe. At the close of the sixteenth century
Glasgow was a town of about 7000 people, holding
only about the eleventh place of importance amongst
Scottish towns. It was probably an insanitary
town, not worse than others at the time : its houses
built of wood and roofed with thatch; its drainage
system consisting of primitive gutters or syvers in
the streets ; frequently visited by plague and pos-
sessing a persistent outcrop of leprosy. Medical
practice was in the hands, in the first instance, of
a few physicians trained in the schools of Italy,
France, and the Low Countries ; then there was a
fairly large body of barber-surgeons, the general
practitioners of the period, not banded together in a
Corporation, as in Edinburgh and London; then
there were also a few barbers who practised surgery
only, and, in addition to these, a horde of char-
latans, pretenders, sellers of simples, and mediciners
of all sorts.
In 1598 the kirk session urged the Town Council
to institute some means whereby the skilled and
237
unskilled practitioners of medicine could be distin-
guished. In April of the following year the Council
appointed a committee (how curiously was that
method of getting out of a public difficulty in vogue
even then !), three bailies, three city ministers, and
three University officers, " with other men skilled
in the art to examine for the future those who prac-
tised in the town." It is probable that the influ-
ence of Peter Lowe was at the back of all this. He
certainly found means of making some kind of repre-
sentation to King James VI. The king it was he
who a few years later became James I. of England
granted in November, 1599, letters under the
Privy Seal empowering Peter Lowe and Robert
Hamilton " to examine and try all who professed
or practised the art of surgery to license ' according
to the airt of knowledge that they sal be found
wordie to exercise ' those whom they judged fit and
to exclude the unqualified from practice with power
to fine those who proved contumacious." Thus was
created the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of
Glasgow. It is a curious fact that in Glasgow the
two great branches of the profession were in those
early days, and still are, associated together in one
corporation, differing from the practice in Edin-
burgh, London, and Dublin, where physicians and
surgeons are organised in different colleges.
Maister Peter Lowe was a Scot whose early man-
hood was spent abroad. He saw service in France
and Flanders, and was surgeon-major to the Spanish
regiments at Paris for two years. He came back
to Glasgow probably in 1598, and was town's doctor,
ior there is a record in the minutes of the Town
238
William Hunter
Council of 17th March, 1599, that certain sums of
money were to be paid to him for attending the poor
of the town. He had been so long away from the
country that when he returned he was possibly un-
aware of the changes in the Church government
which had taken place and the introduction of the
austerities of Calvinism. At all events, he was for
some offence sentenced by the Presbytery of Glasgow
to stand " on the pillar." The offence must have
seemed trivial, for the doctor paid no attention to
the command of the clerics, apparently treating the
whole matter as a jest. The Presbytery, however,
was in no joking mood, for he was condemned to
stand two Sundays on the pillar and pay his fine
as well to the " thesaurer " of the kirk. Peter
Lowe was probably the first to write a textbook on
Chururgerie, which was published in London in
1597. During the seventeenth century the Faculty
of Physicians and Surgeons gradually developed
some kind of organisation and made its influence
felt in the city. It retained the whole control of
licensing of practitioners and surgical apprentices,
such, as it was, and, indeed, more than two centuries
afterwards, when medicine and surgery had long
been recognised as subjects of study and examina-
tion in the University, the Faculty obtained a
decision from the Court of Session that without
examination and licence by them the holder of a
University degree was not entitled to practise sur-
gery within the fairly wide territory of the Faculty.
In this century the University had for itself
begun to recognise the importance of the study of
medicine. In 1637 Robert Mayne was elected
ERRATA.
P. 239, 1. 17, for "Chururgerie" read " Chyrurgerie"
P. 246, 1. 19, for "inglorous" read "inglorious."
R 247, 1. 2, for "and" read "had."
Professor of Medicine. His duty was to " teache
ane publickt lecture of medicine in the said Colledge
once or twyse ewerie weik, except in the ordiner
time of vacance." But in 1642 a Commission of
Visitation of the General Assembly found that the
profession of medicine was not necessary for the
college in all time coming, but allowed Mayne to
continue to be Professor during his life. Mayne
should always be remembered as the author of the
rhyme of the arms of Glasgow. He died in 1646,
a year in which there was a virulent outbreak of
plague, so severe that the University migrated in a
body to Irvine, on the Ayrshire coast. In that year
the plague-stricken people were deported to the
Muir lands of Sighthill, in the northern part of the
city, where they were visited by John Hall, the
principal surgeon of the day, a man plainly built
in heroic mould, carrying out his medical duties
with the courage of all medical heroes.
It is not till the first half of the eighteenth cen-
tury that we come again upon the names of men
who built up the Glasgow School. In 1714 Dr.
Johnstoun was appointed by the Faculty of the Uni-
versity to the revived Chair of Medicine. With the
beginning of the century the University began to
give degrees in medicine, though not to teach the
subject. In 1720 a Chair of Anatomy and Botany,
two subjects curiously linked, was founded, and
Thomas Brisbane was appointed. Brisbane, how-
ever, disliked anatomy, and would not dissect ; he
appears to have had no great objection to teaching
botany. In 1727 he was ordered to teach anatomy
if even ten students entered the whole story has a
240
John Hunter
peradventure ring about it but there is no record
that he did so. He gladly handed over these duties
to Mr. John Paisley, who taught anatomy for ten
years in the Humanity classroom. One of Mr.
Paisley's apprentices, William Cullen, was destined
to make for himself an everlasting name as the
founder of modern medicine, and was to a notable
degree the fount and stimulus of the Hunterian
inspiration.
William Cullen was born in Hamilton, a county
town ten miles south of Glasgow ; he was the son of
a lawyer, factor to the Duke of Hamilton of that
day. After finishing his studies in Glasgow, he
spent a Wander jahr in a voyage to the West Indies,
and on his return pursued his studies in London,
and later in the quickly growing medical school of
Edinburgh. He began practice in Shotts, and then
removed to his native town, and until recently the
House in which he practised was standing at the
corner of Castle Street and the New Wynd. His
reputation spread, and in 1744 he came to Glasgow,
notwithstanding the efforts and promise of a
laboratory by the Duke of Hamilton. Almost im-
mediately he began to lecture, and these lectures
were apparently the first systematic attempt to teach
medicine in the city. He broke new ground by dis-
carding Latin and lecturing in English. He lec-
tured on botany, physic, rnateria medica, and, lastly,
on chemistry. In 1751 he was appointed Professor
of Medicine, an appointment held but a short time,
for four years later he was transferred to the Chair
of Chemistry in Edinburgh University. In Edin-
burgh also he taught medicine, and introduced the
ii 241
epoch-making change of bedside teaching. His
most important work was done in Edinburgh, but he
had done great and notable work for the Glasgow
School : he had set going classes of instruction in
medicine, materia medica, botany, and chemistry ;
he had attracted large numbers of students ; he had
extended the reputation of the University amongst
professional and scientific men, not only in the
United Kingdom, but also on the Continent of
Europe. " He was one of the rarest species of the
man of science a masterless master." His influ-
ence on William Hunter was profound. They came
together when Cullen was twenty-seven years of age
and Hunter nineteen. Cullen gathered the latest
publications on medicine and chemistry, made
frequent experiments himself, and (most extra-
ordinary of all) kept accurate notes of every case in
his practice, a plan adopted, too, by his senior,
Smellie, in Lanark.
William Hunter studied both in Glasgow and
Edinburgh, and in 1750 Glasgow conferred upon
him the degree of M.D. His influence is perpetu-
ated for all time in the Hunterian Museum, a store-
house of marvellous wealth in books, pictures, coins,
as well as anatomical and pathological specimens.
Sir William Gairdner always began his course of
lectures by long quotations and references to
Cullen's Nosology, for Gairdner regarded Cullen as
the opener up of a new era in medicine, as the first
to cast aside the old traditions and canons and to
teach that the physician was the servant of nature,
and that disease must be learned only from direct
study of the patient.
242
Associated with that period, and to some extent
with Cullen himself, was a group of men who left a
lasting and deep impression on the world of medi-
cine. All were not specially connected with the
Glasgow School, but their influence on it must have
been felt. It is remarkable that these small villages
of the Clyde valley Hamilton, East Kilbride,
Lanark, Bothwell should at the same period have
produced a group of minds of the highest scientific
quality. We have pointed out that Cullen was born
in Hamilton. William and John Hunter were born
at Long Calderwood, in the parish of East Kilbride.
Mathew Baillie, nephew of the Hunters, was born
in Bothwell. William Smellie, the famous London
obstetrician, was a Lanark man, and practised there
before the desire for wider scope and opportunity
drove him south. Hunter was an intimate friend of
Cullen, worked as his pupil or apprentice for two
years, and it was his intention to practise with him
in Hamilton as his surgical partner. But an
appointment with Douglas the anatomist proved so
enticing that William Hunter remained in London.
Another friend of Cullen, older than he, was Dr.
John Gordon, a practitioner in Glasgow, President
of the Faculty in 1755. He was friend and corre-
spondent of Smellie. His pupil, Tobias Smollett,
introduced him as " Potion " in " Roderick
Random." Smollett's place with Gordon was taken
by John Moore, father of the hero of Corunna. He
too, with Smollett, was found in London amongst
the Hunter ians.
When Cullen and William Hunter dreamed of
making Glasgow a great Medical School Leyden
243
and Edinburgh were the patterns building the
science of medicine on a foundation of chemistry,
John Hunter, the greatest of them all : ' the
Shakespeare of Medicine " was a rough, harum-
scarum, auburn-haired lad, working on the farm at
Long Calderwood, ignorant of books, but quick and
apt to see and know the things of nature around
him.
Another friend and pupil of Cullen was Joseph
Black, of " latent heat " fame: Black was the dis-
coverer of latent heat, but the first suggestions
regarding it came from the fertile brain of Cullen.
Black succeeded to the Chair of Chemistry in
Glasgow when Cullen went to Edinburgh. One of
his pupils in turn was James Watt, and so the torch
was handed on. Dr. Freeland Fergus has fondly
pointed out a most interesting succession : Cullen
taught Joseph Black; Black taught Thomas Thom-
son ; Thomas Thomson, when Professor of Chemistry,
taught Graham, afterwards Master of the Mint, and
for some time Professor of Chemistry in Anderson's
College; Graham, in University College, London,
had as a pupil Joseph Lister. Thus the founder of
modern medicine is linked longo intervallo with the
founder of modern surgery. These men all belonged
to the Glasgow School, and their names are in-
scribed on the roll of Fellows of the Eoyal
Faculty of Physicians anci Surgeons.
When Cullen left Glasgow, Joseph Black became
the dominant figure in the University world. A
student of Glasgow University both in arts and
medicine, he attracted the notice of Cullen, and
became his pupil and assistant. His medical course
244
was finished in Edinburgh. In 1756 he succeeded
Hamilton as Professor of Anatomy and Botany, and
a year later was appointed Professor of Medicine in
addition. He succeeded Cullen as Lecturer in
Chemistry, and that branch of science permeated all
his other teaching. His great achievement in
Glasgow was the discovery of latent heat. His
experiments were closely watched by other pro-
fessors and by another man of genius, James Watt,
whose workshop was housed in the University
grounds. It is in a way a matter of regret that
Glasgow lost the great services of Cullen and Black
on their successive removals to Edinburgh. When
that change came, when Black removed to Edin-
burgh to succeed Cullen in the Chair of Chemistry,
the lectureship in chemistry in Glasgow was held by
John Robison, about whose name flits a story of
another kind. In his youth he had been a middy
in the Navy, and was in the boat in which Wolfe
went to inspect some posts before the storming of
Quebec. He brought back the story of the great
" General repeating aloud nearly the whole of
Gray's ' Elegy,' then recently published, and de-
claring that he would rather be the author of that
poem than conquer the French on the morrow."
His career did not end as a University lecturer in
Glasgow, as he became secretary to Knowles, who
was then at the head of the Russian Admiralty, and
finished as Professor of Natural Philosophy in
Edinburgh University.
Thomas Thomson was a graduate of Edinburgh,
H.D., in 1799. Before then he had achieved dis-
tinction, as he became editor of the " Encyclopaedia
245
Britannica " in 179G, when only twenty-six year-
of age, in succession to his brother. He was the
introducer of the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe and of the
system of chemical symbols and chemical equations.
He was appointed to the Chair of Chemistry in 1818,
and was physician to the Royal Infirmary for two
years. He was a man of quaint enterprise, and
stories are told of him by Dr. Freeland Fergus. He
walked all the way from Edinburgh to Glasgow in
1808 to see the Tontine illuminated by coal gas.
Once when on a paddle steamer on the Clyde, in
the earliest days of steam, he had got hold of a
bucket and a rope and went out on the wing of the
paddle to draw a sample of the churned-up water
after it had passed the paddle. Whatever his idea
in making the experiment, he seems to have for-
gotten one factor, for the pull on the bucket made
him lose his balance, and he was with some dimculty
saved from a watery and inglorous end. He wa*
popular, as he became the first chairman of the
newly organised Medico-Chirurgical Society in
1844.
Thomas Graham brings the story of the Glasgow
School down to the middle of the nineteenth cen-
tury. Though not a doctor, he required to become
a Fellow of the Faculty to lecture on chemistry to
students of medicine. He was the outstanding
physicist and chemist of his time. He did not be-
long to the University, but was Professor of
Chemistry in Anderson's College. His work on
' Diffusion of Liquids " appeared in 1846. In
1837 he was appointed to University College,
London, and in 1854 he became Master of the Mint.
246
Professor John Anderson, M.A., F.R.S.,
1726-1796
The Founder of the Royal Technical College
At the end of the eighteenth century the Univer-
sity Medical School and a staff of six teachers, a
Professor of Medicine, a Professor of Anatomy, and
lecturers on chemistry, materia medica, midwifery,
and botany. The medical students were nearly 200
in number. The Eoyal Infirmary had been opened
in 1T94 and provided an ample field for clinical
work. The Napoleonic wars awakened the authori-
ties to the needs of surgery, and in 1815 the Chair
of Surgery was founded. The Chairs of Physiology
or Institutes of Medicine and of Forensic Medicine
were founded in 1839. The close proximity of the
University to the Royal Infirmary made it easy to
carry out the clinical teaching, and up till the
removal of the University to the West End of the
city, the wards of the Royal Infirmary were crowded
with students. To-day University students overflow
from the Western Infirmary back again to the Royal
Infirmary and to the Victoria Infirmary, in all of
which the accommodation is taxed to the utmost,
and the distribution is accomplished only by a pre-
cise limitation of the numbers admitted to the
clinical classes. The story of the University has
already been told in a previous article.
The Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons, as we
have indicated, was the licensing body of Glasgow,
controlling the apprentices and the general practi-
tioners. It was not a teaching body. In the
eighteenth century any extra-academic teaching was
occasional only. In 1764 Dr. Andrew Morris, a
graduate of the University of Rheirns, practised in
Glasgow, and lectured on medicine in the Faculty
Hall ; and Mr. James Monteath lectured on mid-
247
wifery from 1778 for a few years. With the estab-
lishment of Anderson's University, or, as it is now
called, the Anderson College of Medicine, in 1795,
extramural teaching became continuous. The
founder of the College was John Anderson, M.A.,
F.R.S. This most ingenious and public-spirited
man became at the age of twenty-nine Professor of
Oriental Languages, and shortly afterwards Pro-
fessor of Natural Philosophy, in the University. He
was the originator of the Mechanics' Institutes,
and for forty years gave series of public lectures on
experimental physics to the mechanics and opera-
tives in the factories of Glasgow. He was the
inventor of a gun carriage and the introducer of the
balloon posts adopted by the French in 1791 in their
effort to spread Republican propaganda. It was to
him that James Watt owed a great debt, as he
befriended Watt and encouraged him in his re-
searches and helped the establishment of his work-
shop in the University grounds. At Anderson's
death the whole of his property was left " to the
public for the good of mankind and the improve-
ment of science in an institution to be denominated
Anderson's University." The scheme for the Uni-
versity was complete, but it became grandiloquent
when it was found that the bequest was only 1000.
However, after vicissitudes and hamperings for
want of money, the school began to prosper, and
by 1833 had a full curriculum, with more
teachers than the University of Glasgow. In 1861
John Freeland assigned funds to secure the delivery
of courses of public lectures especially in Natural
Philosophy. In 1866 William Ewing endowed
248
I
JS
H
popular lectures in the History and Theory of Music
and at his death his Musical Library was bequeathed
to the College. Anderson's University was housed in
a building in George Street, not far from the Uni-
versity of Glasgow. The popularity of the
teachers and the variety of subjects induced
many University students to take classes there.
The classes have for many years been recognised
as qualifying for University degree examinations
and for the diplomas of the Colleges and Faculty.
In 1886 the Medical School was separated from the
other departments of work of the Anderson Univer-
sity, and the Technical College, now a magnificent
building in George Street, City, the finest of its kind
in the world, was established, the Medical School
being removed to its present site close to the
Western Infirmary.
The removal of the University to the west and the
opening of the Western Infirmary was a disastrous
blow to the Royal Infirmary. Steps were accord-
ingly taken in 1875 to rehabilitate the Royal
Infirmary as a clinical school. The leading spirits
in this praiseworthy effort were Dr. John Gibson
Fleming, a former president of the Faculty of
Physicians and Surgeons, and Mr. William Mac-
Ewan, both managers of the infirmary. They were
successful in obtaining a charter which included :
' Powers to offer facilities and accommodation for
the teaching of medicine and surgery and the col-
lateral sciences usually comprehended in a medical
education." At first the school was housed in tem-
porary classrooms, and in 1883 the present com-
modious buildings were erected, adjoining the Royal
249
Infirmary on its northern side. At a later period ,
1889, the Royal Infirmary School of Medicine wa*
converted into St. Mungo's College, the teaching
being conducted in the same buildings. In 1912
the connection of the Royal Infirmary with the Uni-
versity was re-established, when four new professor-
ships Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynae-
cology and Pathology were founded. The associa-
tion of the Royal Infirmary with the University is
still more closely cemented by the appointment of
surgeons and physicians of the infirmary to be Uni-
versity lecturers and examiners. There were other
extramural schools in Glasgow in former days,,
namely, the Portland Street Medical School and the
Western Medical School but these were on the
whole short-lived, though serving a useful purpose
in their day. The extramural schools of Glasgow
have not only possessed teachers of their own of
great eminence, they have also provided an excel-
lent training ground for men who rose to higher
spheres in the University. Many University
professors first made their name as teachers in these
extra-academic schools, and when the time cama
they carried with them scientific and teaching repu-
tations, the lustre of which was not as a rule dimmed
by the more serene and stable atmosphere of the
University.
We may now return to consider the Modern
Glasgow School. The name that stands out most
prominently in the middle of the nineteenth century
is that of Lister.
Joseph Lister was Professor of Surgery from 1862
to 1869, when he too, like so many of his academic
250
forebears, yielded to the claims of Edinburgh-
strong claims to him, both scientific and social.
When he came to Glasgow to fulfil the duties of the
Chair of Surgery he was in the anomalous position
of having no wards in the Royal Infirmary, a con-
dition of affairs which was not rectified for nearly
two years. The story of his surgical achievement
needs no repetition it is sufficiently familiar. The
ward in which his great work was accomplished
still extant ,^nd quite a number of his pupils w
be found in Glasgow to-day. There can be no doubt
that Lister's investigations and discoveries during
his term of office in Glasgoiv completed the discovery
of antiseptic surgery. His work later was simply
that of amplification and extension: it was in
Glasgow, then, that modern surgery was born. In
Glasgow the reception of the new ideas in surgery
was more cordial, and the adoption of the system
more ready, than probably in Edinburgh, and cer-
tainly in London. With one exception, possibly,
Lister's colleagues very soon came to see the true
nature of the revolution, as they had been constantly
in touch with what Lister was doing, and heard
his first expositions of the new theory. Besides, a
genius like Lister attracted the younger men, and
their actively receptive minds saw what a great
thing it was, and spread abroad the new truth.
Sir George / jw[acLeod, Lister's successor in the
chair, belonged to a great Scottish family renowned
in the Church and in social circles. His command-
ing presence (his nickname was " The Duke ") and
firm, impressive, incisive style of teaching are still
remembered by many generations of students.
251
In anatomy Allen Thomson and John Cleland
were towers of strength in Glasgow. The Glasgow
School had not been regarded even by its alumni
as essentially an anatomical school. But it had a
great reverence for its teachers of anatomy. Allen
Thomson was a member of a family which achieved
great distinction : his grandfather was a Paisley
weaver, his father became a professor in Edinburgh,
his brother a professor in Glasgow, and his son a
professor of chemistry in King's College, London.
In anatomy he was well known as one of the editors
of " Quain," and was an early worker in em-
bryology. He will always be remembered as having
taken a most active part in the founding of the
Western Infirmary.
That massive man, John Cleland, who succeeded
him, made deep impressions on all his students,
though it is just possible that they failed to appre-
ciate his great capacity as an anatomist. In the
subject of obstetrics and gynaecology the Glasgow
School claims with pride that the first successful
ovariotomy was performed by Mr. Robert Houston,
Fellow of the Faculty, whose operation was per-
formed in 1701. A complete account of the opera-
tion has been preserved in volume xxxiii. of the
" Philosophical Transactions," London 1733. And
again, to Murdoch Cameron belongs the great credit
of having made Csesarean section a successful, and
now extensively performed, operation.
Another of the great men of the Glasgow
School was Dr. William MacKenzie, perhaps
the most distinguished ophthalmic surgeon
in the United Kingdom of his time. Very
252
shortly after receiving the diploma of the
Faculty he went to the Continent, where he
spent about two years, devoting himself chiefly to
ophthalmology. In London he became a member
of the Eoyal College of Surgeons, and began to
lecture and practise in diseases of the eye. For-
tunately for Glasgow, his success was so limited that
he returned to the city. In 1824, with Dr. Mon-
teath, he founded the Glasgow Eye Infirmary, an
institution which has always played a large part in
Glasgow medical life. MacKenzie was a clinician
of the highest standard; he was probably the first
to give an accurate description of glaucoma, and his
observations on sympathetic opthalmitis proved to-
be the first clear description of that disease.
Andrew Buchanan is a name which is written .n
gold in the annals of the Glasgow School. He was
Professor of Physiology and also surgeon to the
Royal Infirmary for a considerable number of years.
He was the first to give a scientific explanation of
coagulation of the blood, and his papers on this
subject in 1844 attracted attention throughout the
world. His rectangular staff for lateral lithotomy
is a well-known instrument, and was used for that
operation up till quite recently.
When the British Medical Association met in
Glasgow in 1888 the presence of W. T. Gairdner r
Professor of the Practice of Medicine in the Univer-
sity and President of the Association, lent distinc-
tion to all its meetings. It is probably true to say
that no man of the Glasgow School for the past two
generations exercised such a wide influence and
directed so many minds along scientific paths of
253
medicine. Glasgow men of middle age who meet in
almost any capacity, social or otherwise, find even
now a congenial subject of discussion in Gairdner's
personality, his teaching, his philosophic mind, his
scientific attainments, even, indeed, his absent-
mindedness. The physician to him was first of all
a naturalist. That was the subject of one of his
many addresses. His " Plea for Thoroughness "
was in no sense a trite commentary on slipshod
methods, but was an earnest appeal for painstaking,
careful, detailed investigation. " Old G." was in
all essentials the " beloved physician." Gairdner
was the first medical officer of health of the city of
Glasgow ; indeed, it is almost certainly the case that
he was the inventor of the whole idea of the special
department of public health. His work in this
department was characterised by energy and skill
and imagination. Associated with him was Dr. J.
B. Russell, under whose administration the public
health department took first rank in the world.
These two men instituted the fever hospitals, an
efficient sanitary department, and the city improve-
ment schemes, the result of which has been that
Glasgow has been amongst the highest in the records
of public health.
Closely associated with Gairdner and of like mind
were Dr. Joseph Coats, the first Professor of
Pathology in the University, and Dr. James Finlay-
son, a renowned clinician and teacher, learned In
the bibliography of medicine. The Glasgow School
of Pathology began to make a name for itself under
Coats. He possessed the gift of surrounding him-
self with assistants and pupils fired with his own
2-54
zeal. From the days when some of these left.
Glasgow to fill chairs of pathology in other schools
there has been, under his successor, a constant out-
going stream of pathologists from Glasgow to the
medical schools of the Empire.
The Glasgow School makes 'large claims. Though
Cullen did not begin clinical teaching actually in
Glasgow, the clinical method and the foundation of
medicine essentially in the science of chemistry were
established by him in his practice in Hamilton, and
expanded when holding the Chair of Medicine. So
the idea of clinical medicine came from Glasgow.
Then Glasgow claims that through Smellie, of
Lanark, the practice of obstetrics was elevated to
its proper and honoured place. She claims, too,
through Gairdner and Russell, the modern develop-
ment of the care of public health. And, last, she
claims that, through Lister, the greatest of all the
gifts to suffering humanity, the discovery of anti-
septic surgery, came from her.
255
THE ARMS OF THE CITY
OF GLASGOW.*
By Dr. ROBERT MAYNE, first Professor of Physick in the
University of Glasgow, from 1637 to 1646.
The Salmond which a Fish is of the Sea,
The Oak which springs from Earth that loftie Tree.
The Bird on it which in the Air doth flee,
GLASGOW does presage all Things to thee !
To which the Sea or Air, or fertile Earth
Do either give their Nourishment or Birth.
The Bell that doth to Publick Worship call,
Says HEAVEN will give most lastings Things of all.
The Ring the Token of the Marriage is,
Of Things in Heav'n and Earth both thee to bless.
FURTHER.
Glasgow to thee thy neighbouring Towns gives
Place,
Above them lifts thy Head with comely grace.
Scarce in the spacious Earth can any see,
A City that's more beautiful than thee.
Towards the Setting Sun thou'rt built, and finds
The temperate breathings of the Wester Winds.
To thee, the Winter Storms not hurtful are,
Nor scroaching Heats of the Canicular.
More pure than Amber is the River Clyde,
256
Whose gentle streams do by thy Borders glide.
And here a Thousand Sails receives Commands,
To Traffick for thee into Forreign Lands.
A Bridge of polished Stone doth here vouchsafe,
To Travellers ov'r Clyde a Passage safe.
Thy Orchyards full of fragrant Fruits and Budds,
Comes nothing short of the Corcyrian Woods.
And blustering Roses grows upon thy Field,
In Plenty great all Things thy Soil doth yield.
Thy Pasture's cloth'd with Flocks, thy Ground with
Corn,
Thy Water's stocked with Fish, thy Fields adorn' d.
Thy Building's great and glorious all do's see,
More fair within than they are outwardlie.
Thy Temples with the best of Stone are fair,
It's workmanship exceeds which is most rare.
But thee, Glasgow ! we may justly deem
Heaven's Favourite, and ever in Esteem.
All in the Earth, or Ocean or Air,
They joyn'd to build thee with a propitious Star.
257
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