PREFACE. 



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The Museum of the Koyal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh 

 dates from about the end of last century. Although the 

 specimens were only formally entered in the General Catalogue 

 about 1807, many of those afterwards added had been collected 

 before that time. Under the fostering care of Eobert Knox, W. 

 M'Gilhvray, John Goodsir, H. Lee, W. Sanders, J. Bell Pettigrew, 

 and E. Blair Cunynghame, the general collection has steadily 

 increased by donations of individual specimens and prepara- 

 tions, but it has also been enriched from time to time by 

 collections formed by private persons. Of these, the most 

 important is the "Bell Collection," which will be afterwards 

 referred to, but many others must also be mentioned. Thus 

 there were the Collections formed by one of the College 

 Professors of Surgery, an office now obsolete, Professor John 

 Thomson, and those formed by Messrs James Eussell, after- 

 wards Professor in the University of Edinburgh, and Eobert 

 Allan ; the Series of Urinary and Biliary Calculi collected by 

 Dr William Newbigging; the admirable Dental Collection 

 formed by Mr Nasmyth ; and the preparations, casts, and 

 instruments illustrating Ophthalmic Surgery collected by Mr 

 William Walker. In more recent years Dr C. E. Underbill 

 presented his Midwifery Museum to the College, and Dr 



