xiv 



ages ; and among those of executed criminals, of which several were 

 those of murderers, " there is the skull of Renier, a celebrated 

 murderer of the worst class, which Gall, when asked regarding the 

 collection, singled out and set aside as one clearly not belonging to a 

 murderer !" He also notes " a protuberance inside the inner canthus 

 of the orbit in a Jew's skull, which Vrolik considered as peculiar to 

 that race." Next came notes of the Strasburg and the Berlin 

 Museums. In this latter he made a great number of notes, especially- 

 bearing on the embryos of animals and the details of embryology 

 generally ; dissections of varieties in the arrangement of the aorta 

 and adjoining vessels; transpositions of viscera and teratology — 

 making drawings as well as notes of what he saw. He was particu- 

 larly interested in a human foetus (481) at three weeks, in which the 

 branchial arches are seen ; as well as the split between them into the 

 pharynx. " He was allowed to take this preparation from its bottle, 

 to place it in a watch glass to make a drawing of it " ; and to note 

 its measurements. The marks of the eye and ear were both easily 

 seen, and the superior maxillary fold connected with the inferior 

 round the angles of the month. He notes also the heart partially 

 divided into two ventricles. 



On his return to Edinburgh after this short sojourn on the Conti- 

 nent, he commenced his career as a teacher by starting as an extra- 

 academical lecturer on anatomy and physiology. " In this under- 

 taking he was associated with the late Dr. William Sharpey — (his 

 senior by only seven years) — who ultimately became Professor of 

 Physiology in University College, London, and with whom Allen 

 Thomson maintained a life-long friendship of the closest possible 

 character."* Six years ago (March, 1881), when writing to his pupil, 

 John Struthers, the distinguished Professor of Anatomy in Aberdeen, 

 he says : " Sharpey and I lectured together at No. 9, Surgeon's 

 Square, from 1831 till 1836, when 1 left on account of my health 

 being rather impaired. He taught the Anatomy and I the Physiology 

 but in the later years, as my father urged me very much t'o prepare 

 myself for Anatomy, I took a share in the Anatomy teaching by 

 attending in the dissecting room and giving some demonstrations." 

 At this time a keen competition existed among the four teachers, 

 who, in addition to the Professors within the University, divided 

 among them the students who applied for instruction. It was no 

 light undertaking at that time to become a teacher of Anatomy in 

 Edinburgh. In 1828 a series of murders were brought to light 

 which had been effected by two notorious criminals — Burke and 

 Hare — for the money they would obtain for the bodies of their 

 victims as material for the dissecting rooms ; and for many years 



* M'Kendrick, " Memoir of Dr. Allen Thomson," ' Glasgow Phil. Soc. Proc.,' 

 vol. 15, 1884.. 



