1888-89.] Professor Alexander Dickson. 509 



occasion of tlie first awakenings of latent scientific impulses. 

 In hira they appear to have served this purpose. He became 

 an enthusiastic biologist; and a warm admirer and disciple 

 of Goodsir, in whose philosophical tendencies he found, like 

 many of his friends, the inspiring direction that soon became 

 so marked and characteristic a feature of his scientific work 

 and aims. Engrossed in natural science, he took, it would 

 seem, comparatively little interest in the purely professional 

 or technical departments of the medical curriculum. He, 

 however, appreciated differentiation as a means of promoting 

 advancement in the art as well as in the science of medicine. 

 In his inaugural address, delivered in 1859, as a President 

 of the Eoyal Medical Society, he supposes the questions, 



" Of what use is it for a student of medicine to know 



that the cranium is composed of vertebral elements — that 

 such and such bones of the face correspond to costal arches ; 

 and that certain bones and muscles of the upper extremi- 

 ties correspond to other bones and muscles in the lower ? 



Why should " his " memory be burdened with 



apophysis and epiphysis, when " there is " so much else to 

 be learned of more direct importance ? " And he goes on, 

 — " To such objections it may be answered, that although 

 morphological anatomy in its present state may be of little 

 practical importance to the medical man, yet this is no 

 reason why he should not study it. It must be at once 

 apparent that, from the nature of homological anatomy, one 

 of the great ends which it is destined to accomplish is a 

 simplified teaching of descriptive anatomy, by a logical and 

 intelligible arrangement and generalisation of the enormous 

 mass of facts with which the anatomical student has to con- 

 tend ; and this can only be attained to by the development 

 and perfecting of homological anatomy, by which alone a 

 philosophical classification of anatomical details can be 

 rendered possible. Such being the case, all doubt as to 

 the utility of homological anatomy must be thrown aside. 

 Its study must surely be of importance, if it enables anyone 

 to assist, however slightly, in promoting so good an end. 

 The medical man, while he performs his duties to his suffer- 

 ing fellow-creatures, ought never to forget at the same time 

 what he owes to medical science and to posterity." 



Dr Dickson graduated as doctor of medicine m Auoust 



