XXIV 



but they obtained for him so much esteem amongst bis fellow students 

 as to lead to his election as one of the Presidents of the Royal 

 Medical Society. Before taking his degree he had obtained the 

 Licentiateship of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, and had 

 acted as House Surgeon for Mr. Syme. After his graduation, at the 

 age of twenty-one he became Physician to the British Embassy at 

 Turin. In the following year he returned to Edinburgh and acted 

 for a while as resident Clinical Physician in the Infirmary. After 

 resigning this appointment he studied for a short time in Dublin and 

 Paris. He then entered the Honourable East India Company's service, 

 and soon after his arrival in Calcutta, was appointed Professor of 

 Chemistry in the Medical College. During the Burmese War he was 

 attached to the Army Medical Staff, and in 1855 he returned to 

 London. Very soon afterwards he was appointed Lecturer in Botany 

 at St. Mary's Hospital. He was subsequently connected with King's 

 College Hospital, the Middlesex, St. Thomas's Hospital, and in the 

 latter two schools held the appointment of Lecturer on Medicine. 



In addition to these appointments, he held for many years that of 

 Assistant Physician and afterwards of Physician to the London Fever 

 Hospital, an office which demanded much time as well as much 

 labour. 



The subjects to which Murchison devoted his attention as an 

 original observer were botany, pathology, and medicine. Botany was 

 the subject which he first took up. He began to study it while in 

 Aberdeen, and prosecuted it vigorously in Edinburgh under Professor 

 Balfour, in whose class he obtained the medal for the best herbarium. 

 Three years afterwards he contributed his first original paper on 

 " Glandular Organs in Plants " to the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. 

 As his attention became directed to other subjects, his botanical 

 studies were more or less interrupted. He continued them in Burmah 

 and again resumed them when he became Lecturer on Botany to 

 St. Mary's, at which time he contributed several original papers to 

 various journals, but they were almost entirely discontinued after he 

 ceased to lecture on botany, his powers then becoming more con- 

 centrated on the subjects of pathology and medicine. 



His first original pathological observations were made during his 

 tenure of office as House Surgeon under Mr. Syme, and were embodied 

 in his thesis on " The Pathology of Morbid Growths," for which he 

 obtained a gold medal at his graduation. 



From the time of his connexion with St. Mary's Hospital, his in- 

 terest in pathology remained undiminished up to the time of his death. 

 His contributions to the " Transactions of the Pathological Society" 

 were very numerous, and his services to this subject were recognised 

 by his appointment, in 1877, as President of the Pathological Society. 

 His most valuable contributions to medicine were his works on "The 



