xix 



the father of Allen Thomson became the friend of John Allen, who 

 was associated with him in the duties of the house, and with whom, 

 up to the time of Mr. Allen's death in 1843, he maintained an unin- 

 terrupted friendship, and to the powerful influence of which over the 

 fortunes of his life he has himself borne testimony in the dedication 

 to Mr. Allen of the first volume of his ' Life of Cullen.'* 



Dr. John Thomson named his son Allen after his distinguished 

 friend. 



Dr. John Gordon died in 1818, thirteen years before Allen 

 Thomson began to lecture and teach Anatomy. After Dr. John 

 Allen had ceased to lecture, Dr. John Gordon (having taught 

 Anatomy and Physiology together for two years, 1808-1810) gave a 

 course of Physiology separate from his course of Anatomy either in 

 the winter ensuing or in the summer session ; and for his character 

 and work Allen Thomson had a great veneration. In writing, three 

 years before he died, to Professor John Struthers, and referring to 

 Gordon, he says: "I am especially pleased with your recognition of 

 John Gordon's character and work, which is not only perfectly true 

 as regards himself, but gives some indication of the influence which 

 my father exercised upon his pupils and the School of Edinburgh. 

 I have still all Gordon's papers, as well as John Allen's." 



Dr. Sharpey's influence was that which made itself felt through a 

 life-long friendship of the closest kind, bound together, as he and 

 Allen Thomson were, in allied anatomical and physiological pursuits. 

 Sharpey was one of the young men in Edinburgh who owed the direc- 

 tion of their studies and inspiration to John Thomson, and this 

 debt he repaid to his son Allen by an affectionate friendship. He was 

 about twenty-nine years of age, and Dr. Allen Thomson twenty-two, 

 when they commenced to teach Anatomy and Physiology together in 

 Edinburgh in 1831. This association subsisted during the four follow- 

 ing years till 1836, when Dr. Sharpey became Professor of Physiology 

 in University College, London. 



Dr. Allen Thomson spent the autumns of 1836 and 1837 at Rothi- 

 murchus, in the Western Highlands of Scotland, near Aviemore, with 

 the Bedford family, arid afterwards began his tour on the Continent 

 with them. 



On his return in 1839 he was appointed (at the age of thirty) Pro- 

 fessor of Anatomy in the Marischal College and University of 

 Aberdeen, which he resigned in 1841. Returning to Edinburgh in 

 the autumn, he became once more a teacher of Anatomy in the 



* ' Biographical Notice of Dr. John Thomson,' prefixed to his ' Life of Cullen,' 

 p. 11, 1859. It is erroneously stated in a recent work, ' Life and Times of Sydney 

 Smith,' by Mr. Stuart J. Reid, 1884, p. 122, that John Allen and John Thomson 

 were fellow apprentices to Mr. Arnot, an Edinburgh surgeon. There was no such 

 apprenticeship, and the facts are those stated in the text, at page xi. 



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