XV 



geons, Mr. Goodsir returned to Anstrutlier, where, whilst assisting his 

 father in practice, he found time to pursue his anatomical and zoological 

 studies, and in 1838 brought before the British Association his observations 

 on the "Development of the Teeth. 



Shortly after this he returned to Edinburgh to fill the office of Conser- 

 vator of the Museum of the College of Surgeons, for the duties of which he 

 was v/ell adapted, not only from his anatomical knowledge, but from his skill 

 in preparing and displaying anatomical and pathological specimens. He 

 nov/ became a Member of the Wernerian. Botanical, Medico- Chirurgical, 

 and Royal Societies of Edinburgh, and communicated to their Proceedings 

 and Transactions numerous memoirs, Vv^hich rapidly brought him into notice 

 as an industrious and keen observer of animal form^ and structure in both 

 healthy and morbid conditions. His well-known papers on Sarcina, on the 

 anatomy of Amphioxus lanceolatus, on secreting structures, and on the 

 structure of the placenta may be mentioned as examples of his work at this 

 period. 



In 1842-43 he delivered lectures at the College of Surgeons, in which 

 he enunciated his views on various important physiological and pathological 

 processes, which were subsequently incorporated, along with some obser- 

 vations by his brother Harry, in an octavo volume published in 1845. In 

 these lectures he contended that the nucleus of the cell was a persistent 

 element of the textures, that it existed even within the bone-corpus- 

 cles, that it played a most important part in the nutrition of the textures, 

 and that great multiplication of the nuclei occurred in disease of cartilage, 

 bone, and other tissues. 



In 1844 he was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy in the University 

 to Dr. I^fonro tertius, and on the resignation of that gentleman in 1846 he 

 succeeded him in the Chair of Anatomy, an office which he continued to 

 hold until his death. In the same year he communicated to the Philoso- 

 phical Transactions a Memoir on the DeveloprnxCnt of the Suprarenal, 

 Thymus, and Thyroid Glands, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal 

 Society. 



Mr. Goodsir enjoyed for many years remarkable success as a teacher. 

 He gathered together a large nnmber of students, and for several years the 

 attendance on his class numbered between 300 and 400. In his Lectures 

 on Human and Comparative Anatomy he did not satisfy himself with giving 

 a mere descriptive account of the various structures he was called on to ex- 

 pound, but he pointed out the relations of his science to physiology, patho- 

 logy, histology, morphology, and development. It w^as to this mode of 

 illustrating the dry details of anatom}^, more perhaps than to any special 

 faculty for exposition, that his success as a teacher was due. He worked 

 most assiduously at Comparative Anatomy, and by his labours the collection 

 in the Anatomical Museum of the University has been very largely increased, 

 partly by the specimens added during his lifetime, and partly by the pur- 

 chase of his private collection since his decease. In 1850 he projected and 



