XXI 



of Dr. Alison to the Chair of the Practice of Medicine ; and to suc- 

 ceed to the Chair of Physiology was the object of Allen Thomson's 

 laudable ambition.* Forthwith in the autumn of 1841 Professor 

 Alison resigned the Chair of Institutes of Medicine or Physiology in 

 the University of Edinburgh, and in 1842 Allen Thomson was ap- 

 pointed his successor at the age of thirty-three. The contest was 

 severe with such formidable competitors as Robert Knox, John Reid, 

 Hughes Bennett, and W. B. Carpenter. He held this Professorship 

 in Edinburgh for six years, and during that time he made several im- 

 portant contributions to the science of embryology. He at the same 

 time made the course on physiology systematic and complete, devoting 

 himself entirely to the teaching of physiology proper. His lectures 

 were prepared with great care, and a very elaborate synopsis of the 

 day's subject was written in chalk on blackboards for the students to 

 copy, supplemented by drawings in coloured chalk, often very elabo- 

 rate, and numerous wall diagrams. (A goodly MS. volume of such 

 abstracts is in the writer's possession.) 



Allen Thomson's familiarity with what was being done in Germany 

 and France gave breadth and thoroughness to his teaching. He took 

 great pains in making his drawings and in writing the heads of the 

 lectures before the time of meeting ; and like his friend Dr. Sharpey, 

 he lectured mainly from short notes. He was systematic and 

 methodical in everything, and took great pains to perfect his teaching 

 in every way ; and every course of lectures he delivered, whether to 

 a popular or professional audience, cost him much labour from day to 

 day. On debatable points, and where definite conclusions had not 

 been arrived at, he was careful to give us the views of observers on 

 opposite sides, but it was tantalising in the extreme when at the end 

 we could not learn what his own views were. This was all the more 

 distracting because he was so full of knowledge, so clear in his state- 

 ment, and so sound in his judgment. But the weak part (or perhaps 

 strong part) in Allen Thomson's mental development appeared to be 

 so great an excess of caution in coming to a definite conclusion that 

 he seemed always to hold his mind open to receive and digest new 

 matter. He was thus prevented from making any broad generalisation 

 with which his name can be associated. 



In all his researches his mind inclined more to the anatomical 

 than to the physiological side of biology, having more to do with the 

 development of form than the development of function; and when 

 the Chair of Auatomy in Glasgow University became vacant by the 

 death of Dr. James Jeffray in 1848, Allen Thomson became his suc- 

 cessor at the age of thirty-nine. His introduction by Lady Holland 

 to Lord Melbourne (in 1833) fifteen years beforehand already referred 

 to, shows that Allen Thomson was destined for that chair as a political 

 * ' Memoir,' by Professor John Struthers, p. 5. 



