56 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
a noted Mineralogist, and the founder of the Natural History 
part of the well-known Museum at Edinburgh. 
It is evident that what Forbes appreciated most was 
the collecting excursions into the country around Edinburgh, 
and even further afield to the Northern Highlands or to the 
Western Islands, which some of the Professors organised from 
time to time. That was really the practical work in Natural 
Science of those days. It is curious to recall nowadays, when 
we use the microscope so constantly, that the study of histology 
and microscopic structure in general was only introduced 
into medical studies, in 1841, by Professor Hughes Bennett, 
who had been a fellow student of Edward Forbes. Forbes 
was, at Edinburgh, the centre of a group of brilliant young men, 
some half dozen of whom, after being fellow students, later 
on became fellow Professors in the same University. Among 
these we may note John Goodsir, the great Anatomist ; 
Balfour, the Professor of Botany; George Wilson, the 
biographer of Forbes; and Sir Robert Christison. 
Goodsir was Forbes’ first and probably his best friend. 
We are told that when he first called at his lodging he found 
the future malacologist boiling in his kettle a rare mollusc, 
Clausilia mgricans, he had found on Arthur’s Seat, in order 
to get the animal from the shell—and Goodsir thereupon 
gave him a first lesson in dissecting a mollusc. We get 
curious glimpses of student life in Forbes’ accounts—which 
are characteristically added up incorrectly—such as, “ Leg, 
£2; Church, 6d.; Insects, 2/-.” The “ Leg” was, of course, 
his “ part’ in the dissecting room. We are told he was one 
of the idlest students of medicine Edinburgh ever saw—which 
is surely a strong statement—and yet we may be sure he was 
always fully employed in some interesting study, literary, 
artistic or scientific. The point is that he was not doing 
what he was intended to do, and in that sense his time was 
wasted. He began each lecture with serious. notes, which 
