p. 8, line -13. For Humphrey read Humphry

p. 8, line -7. For Priestly's read Priestley's

p. 57, lines 26 & 28. For Edmond read Edmund

Agriculture is one of the most basic activities of mankind. The production of food and fibre from a resource of land might be regarded simply as an example of the application of the biological and physical sciences and the progress of farming could be chronicled in such terms. Farming, however, takes place in a political, economic and social environment and has indeed been responsible for, as well as responsive to, changes that have taken place in all these aspects of society. The ownership of land, the tenancy of land, the availability of capital for land improvement, the costs of essential inputs into farming, the prices obtained for its final products, the conditions under which men and women work on the land, the rewards they receive and the whole infrastructure of rural life, constitute a complex fabric in which science is but one thread. It is difficult to assess when technical innovation occurs and, if it takes place, who has taken the major steps, or whether it alters farming practice or disturbs what is rarely, if ever, a stable economic, social and political equilibrium in the countryside. It suffices to state that a wholly scientific account of agricultural improvement and an analysis of the origins of agricultural discovery cannot explain the extent of the advances which have been made in the past two centuries in Scottish agriculture.

The writing of the history of any science within an individual country is a rash undertaking. The natural sciences, unlike literature, law and theology, pay no regard to national frontiers. The intellectual ancestry, for example, of much Scottish biochemistry can be traced back to England on the one hand and Germany on the other. Where the last quarter of a century is concerned, the problem is compounded by the sheer volume and variety of research carried on, even in a country as small and poor as Scotland, and by the number of institutions and individuals engaged in it. To be comprehensive, to attempt to do justice to everyone and to every laboratory, would be an impossible undertaking.

When the Royal Society of Edinburgh was founded, the art of beer brewing had already been practised for well ov,er five thousand years, initially in Mesopotamia, then in Egypt and, for the last two millennia, in Continental Europe and in Britain. The procedures used were —and still are —essentially simple. First, barley is malted by growing the grain to allow it to form an assortment of enzymes, some of which, particularly the proteinases and β-glucanases, gradually free the starch granules of the endosperm from their enclosing organic matrix. The enzyme-amylase is also synthesised during malting and, though it has a limited action on the starch in the intact grain, it assumes major importance later during mashing. As a result of the enzymic activity during malting, the endosperm becomes friable instead of tough and the germinated barley, now known as malt, is kiln-dried so that it can be safely stored.

In surveying two centuries of Scottish botany—within which the study of mycology was long customarily included—and in examining its links with the global advance of botanical science, we shall focus attention on a general picture of its development and must disclaim any attempt, in a short essay, to give a detailed history. Nor shall we try to lay down a rigid definition of Scottish botany since we believe that a sufficiently clear and reasonable delimitation will become apparent in the context of what we may call, following David Hume, the necessary connections of our theme.

It is an impossible task to identify a precise point in time which marks the start of an important departure in scientific thought. Every such development has its antecedents in earlier observations, ideas and interpretations. This applies as much to ecology as to any other branch of knowledge, if not more so since ecology at least in part is a synthetic discipline, depending for its progress on advances in other relevant aspects of biological and environmental science. Ecology is, perhaps, more an approach to biological enquiry than a ‘subject’ with clearly circumscribed information content and terms of reference. It is, however, a distinctive approach in that it concerns the interactions between organisms and the environments within which they habitually dwell, and their interactions among themselves in populations and communities.

The term ‘Food Science’ first appeared in 1937 when Dr Franklin Kidd, at that time Director of the Low Temperature Research Station, Cambridge, addressed the Annual General Meeting of the Food Group of the Society of Chemical Industry. In the course of his talk, he said ‘We hope to see, as a natural development arising out of our activities, university education in Food Science and honours degrees in the subject.’ Twelve years were to elapse before the first honours course in the subject was established by the late Professor James P. Todd in the Royal Technical College, Glasgow (now Strathclyde University) in 1949. A further twelve years were to pass before other universities in England took up the subject, soon to be followed in almost every country in the world with a well-developed university system. In making this prior claim for Strathclyde University, it must immediately be admitted that aspects of the subject had been taught elsewhere before 1949 under a variety of names (for example, Dairying, Cereal Science and the like) but the special significance of the Strathclyde use of the term ‘Food Science’ was conceptual. It implied the existence of a common scientific discipline underlying the approach to the study of the properties of all foodstuffs. Time has proved the value of this unifying idea and its influence is no longer in dispute. In the early days of the subject, a line was drawn at the farm gate, with agricultural science within and food science without. This convenient distinction has proved to be artificial, and although still used by some, food science has moved behind the gate as its influence on most aspects of crop quality continues to increase.

Anderson (F.R.S.E. 1952), in A History of Scottish Forestry (1967), pieced together from many varied historical sources a picture of the natural indigenous woodlands of Scotland, which has been confirmed by scientific studies based on pollen counts and botanical analysis (McVean 1964; Durno 1973; Godwin 1975). The species composition of these natural indigenous woodlands was closely associated with geology, soil and elevation. Around the coast and in the lower parts of the river valleys, the moist, fertile mineral soils carried deciduous woodland comprising oak (Quercus robur and Q. petraea), Wych elm (Ulmus glabra), ash (Fraxinus excelsior) and Black alder (Alnus glutinosa). On the drier soils, there was less ash and elm but more birch (Betula pendula and B. pubescens) along with the oak. Above the oak-ash-elm woodlands, on the lower and middle slopes of hills composed of igneous and rich metamorphic rocks, the woodlands included birch, alder, aspen (Populus tremuld), rowan (Sorbus aucuparia), willow (Salix species) and hazel (Corylus avellana). Above this zone were short scrubby stands of birch and willow.

This review is one of a series commemorating the bicentenary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1783–1983). However, in the case of freshwater science, so little work was carried out prior to the establishment of the Royal Society that it is convenient to attempt a comprehensive, if rather brief, review of all the published work available in this field. Restrictions of space have meant that most studies —especially those projects issuing many publications over the last two decades can only be given brief mention.

The basic principles of inheritance were not established as a consequence of an immense accumulation of descriptive evidence. In this respect, the history of genetics differs from that of many other branches of biology. Before Mendel's conceptual tour de force and indeed, until his rules of diploid inheritance were rediscovered at the turn of the century, the phenomenon of heredity remained a mystery. A number of plant hybridists grappled with the apparently inscrutable properties of variation and even Darwin, the most incisive and comprehensive thinker among nineteenth-century biologists, remained baffled. Nevertheless, in the space of some 80 years, a staggering explosion in our understanding of heredity and in the development of analytical techniques has propelled the science of genetics into the middle of the biological stage where it plays a role rather analogous to that of atomic physics vis-à-vis the physical sciences.

Margaret Deacon (1971) has given us a very comprehensive account of the development of marine science from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century and, since Edinburgh was a focal point in the nineteenth century, it would be superfluous and presumptuous of me to endeavour to repeat what she has done. Furthermore, so much has been written about the Challenger Expedition which was nurtured in Edinburgh that again it seems quite unnecessary to repeat in any detail the story of that major milestone in the development of the subject. The specialist has the 50 volumes of scientific reports of the expedition to refer to, while, of the numerous popular accounts Eric Linklater's book (1972) is agreeable reading.

During the two hundred years under review, medical education in Scotland evolved gradually from an apprentice system to become the prerogative of the universities of St Andrews, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh, named in the order of their foundation. Of those, the University of Edinburgh was not only the last to be founded, it differed also in that its administration initially was by the Town Council. It was an Act passed by that body on 9 February 1726, that established the Charter of the Medical Faculty of the University. Four Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, namely John Rutherford, Andrew Sinclair, Andrew Plummer and John Innes were appointed foundation professors, the first two to chairs of the theory and practice of medicine, Plummer and Innes to chairs of medicine and chemistry. All four had been pupils of Boerhaave.

It is customary for textbooks on the history of science or of medicine to trace the origins of microbiology to the last quarter of the nineteenth century in France and Germany. Apart from mentioning Leeuwenhoek's observations in the 1670s, they virtually ignore the considerable amount of work which extends back to the sixteenth century. Much of this was, in fact, British, with Scots at home or abroad figuring prominently in the story (Selwyn 1974, 1976).

Conservation of nature is a culture of the twentieth century possessing its own philosophical, ethical and scientific frame which is distinct from those of agriculture, forestry and other producer industries. In the latter, conservation is directed towards the creation and maintenance of the quality and quantity of the product, be it cereal, wood pulp or automobiles; in the former, nature conservation is directed towards the maintenance of numbers of different species distributed in different assemblages of natural or semi-natural type and towards the care of geological and physiographical features.

In Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland (1791–99), we have a very detailed and accurate picture of the conditions prevailing in this country two hundred years ago. There are numerous descriptions of how, during the preceding half-century, the extensive draining of marshes led to the control of malaria, or ague, and the introduction of inoculation almost completely eradicated smallpox; these were important factors which contributed towards the health and prosperity of the country.

‘The appreciation and study of the Natural Sciences appear to have been of tardy growth in the North of Scotland’ (Traill 1906).

The origins of the study of zoology in the Universities of Scotland are reminiscent of evolutionary events. A shadowy beginning, periods of apparent stagnation, sudden transition into more active states, and latterly, a reversion and regrouping under modern financial pressures. Not a smooth progression, but rather a lurching progress and cladistic development!