knowledge, and attended its meetings regularly until shortly before his death. Dining habits Fordyce was an eccentric, who ate only one meal of meat a day at the same hour in the same place. He would always eat a pound and a half of rump steak and whilst this was being prepared, half a broiled chicken or plate of fish. As reported in The Epicure's Almanack (1815, page 3), Fordyce dined daily at Dolly's Chophouse: "At this house the ingenious anatomist and chemical lecturer, Dr. George Fordyce, dined every day for more than twenty years. His research in comparative anatomy had led him to conclude that man, through custom, eats oftener than nature requires, one meal a day being sufficient for that noble animal the lion. He made the experiment on himself at this, his favorite house, and finding it succeeded, he continued the following regimen for the term above mentioned. At four o'clock, his accustomed hour of dining, he entered, and took his seat at a table always reserved for him, on which were instantly placed a silver tankard full of strong ale; a bottle of port wine, and a measure containing a quarter pint of brandy. The moment the waiter announced him, the cook put a pound and a half of rump steak on the gridiron, and on the table a delicate trifle as a bon bouche, to serve until the steak was ready. This morsel was sometimes half a broiled chicken, sometimes a plate of fish: when he had eaten this, he took one glass of his brandy, and then proceeded to devour his steak. We say devour, because he always ate so rapidly that one might imagine that he was hurrying away to a patient, to deprive death of a dinner. When he had finished his meat, he took the remainder of his brandy, having, during his dinner, drunk the tankard of ale, and afterwards the bottle of port. He thus daily spent an hour and a half of his time, and then returned to his house in Essex Street, to give his six-o'clock lecture on chemistry. He made no other meal until his return next day at four o'clock to Dolly's." Family In 1762 he married the daughter of Charles Stuart, Esq., conservator of Scottish privileges in the United Netherlands, by whom he had four children: two sons and two daughters. His daughter Mary Sophia