| Description | Minute book of the Council and Building Committee.
'Minutes of the Council appointed by the Medical Society for the management of private business - as seen in minute book 20th Nov. 1817; Minutes of the Building Committee'. Part of a letter or minute has been pasted onto the inside cover of the volume. It refers to the new building at King Street and is not dated.
11 December 1817, Divinity Hall, Marischal College
'The Council examined the accounts of the Medical Society for the past year and took into consideration the means to be adopted in order to reduce the expenses of the Society for the ensuing year'. It was resolved that the salary of the Society's officers should be reduced from £10.10 to £7.7 per annum for both classes. Includes note of income and expenditure, the latter totalling £26.15 and including the cost of coal and candles and insurance, leaving a balance of £12.3.
20 December 1817
'The Building Committee having considered the plans laid before them by Mr. Simpson resolved to order estimates for the House and Portico separately…'.
5 February 1818
List of estimates received for building work [also see minute of 17 April].
Note on page 14 referring to sudden death of Dr. Barclay and fact that minutes were received for particular dates from his executors, 'with a note on the back of the first stating that no minutes had been kept during the summer and the meetings were held at the new building and regarded mainly the progress of the building or the promotion of subscriptions'.
7 November 1818
Reference to expense of finishing principal floor of the new building, an estimate from Mr. Leith for this work amounting to £2,187. The Society's funds are noted as being £2,042 but the deficit could be resolved as £489 was not payable until June 1819.
8 December 1818
At this meeting of the Building Committee and Council it was decided that the arching of the ceiling in the hall was too flat and spoiled the appearance of the room: 'It appeared to them that a ceiling entirely flat or square would render it much handsomer, and the Secretary was ordered to procure estimates for the alteration'. [See minute of the 15 December.]
14 December 1818
Present: Doctors Harvey, Ogilvie, Henderson and Barclay and the Reverend Mr. Forbes. A meeting was called to discuss the communication from the latter regarding 'the body of a poor woman belonging to the parish of Old Aberdeen, which had been raised by the Students of Medicine'. 'It seemed to them that the practice of raising bodies was fraught with the worst consequences not only to the Medical Society and Medical School of Aberdeen but to other institutions belonging to the place and to the peace of Society in general. In the first place this practice brings the property of the Medical Society into the most imminent danger and it is now in a much more tangible shape than it was three years ago, when it was found necessary at a few hours notice to remove it in hampers and disperse it through the town as the only means of preserving it from the fury of an incensed mob…in the third place it will have a most pernicious effect in preventing the poorer classes from applying for relief when affected with the _ epidemic or any other dangerous disease, because they will naturally be afraid that the knowledge of their poverty and death may lead to their bodies being raised for dissection…The woman whose body has been raised…was affected with fever and applied at the House of Recovery for relief. Some students were sent to see her and thus became acquainted with her death and the time and plan of her burial'.
28 October 1830
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