122 A REVIVAL OF THE SCHOOL. 



found in the Annals of Natural History, vol. xvii. 

 p. 275 (1846). Goodsir looked upon the potato- 

 disease as an epidemic, and that there was a general 

 resemblance between the rise and progress of epi- 

 demics and the appearance or non-appearance of fungi 

 from season to season. From this analysis Goodsir 

 conceived that, in attempting to explain the nature of 

 the potato-disease, the fungi in the diseased tubers 

 should not be overlooked. He held that the brown 

 matter met with in the diseased potato was organic ; 

 his belief being based upon its peculiar forms and 

 position in the cells. 



On attaining the chair of the Monros, the pedestal 

 of his highest ambition, Goodsir looked forward to the 

 revival of the anatomical school, to its being made 

 worthy of the exalted position that characterised it 

 during the regime of the Monros primus et secundus, 

 and more worthy still of the advancing progress mark- 

 ing biological science in his own times. To extend the 

 basis of his distinguished predecessors, and to improve 

 the superstructure of Barclay and Knox, influenced 

 Goodsir 's thoughts from the day he entered upon his 

 professorship to the last session of his occupancy. 

 Standing in the main vestibule of the iEsculapian 

 temple, and vested with the responsibility of pre- 

 paring the minds of the novitiates for the higher 

 cultus of medicine within, he felt the gravity of his 

 position, and sought, with all the fervidity of his 

 nature, to exalt anatomy as a science, and to make his 

 prelections fresh, practical, and suggestive. 



