On 7th November 1959, in reply to the toast to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, proposed by Dr Rae Gilchrist, Her Majesty said: 'The progress in medical science in the last few decades has been prodigious. But we must not forget the pioneers of earlier years whose work did so much to advance the diagnosis and treatment of illness. It is a source of pride to reflect how many of these were Scotsmen practising in this city… Your services to hospitals and in the fields of discovery are often recorded – and rightly. But there is another place, less often quoted, where I think the doctor occupies a special niche and that is in the home. There can be few of us who cannot remember the sense of reassurance we have felt from childhood's days at the friendly spectacle, when we were ailing, of the family doctor – the friend of us all'.