XXII 



inheritance ; for then, as now, political connexion influences the 

 chances of scientific appointments; and according as a Whig or Tory 

 Government was in the ascendant, it was known that Allen Thomson 

 or a political opponent would obtain the chair. But when Dr. Jeffray 

 vacated his chair it was given to Allen Thomson with universal 

 approval. He thus returned to the teaching of anatomy as to his first 

 love, remaining constant to its teaching in the Glasgow University 

 with great distinction in the professorship. He resigned it in 1877, 

 when he was succeeded by its present distinguished occupant, Pro- 

 fessor Cleland, who had been one of his demonstrators in previous 

 years. 



During these previous twenty-five years of teaching anatomy and 

 physiology, Allen Thomson had the unique experience of having been 

 a professor in three out of the four of the Scottish Universities, and 

 in all of them there is evidence that he worked with an indefatigable 

 industry, not only in connexion with the immediate duties of the 

 chair he held, but as a frequent contributor to scientific literature. 

 Thus it came to pass that his reputation, as a teacher and as a man 

 of science, steadily increased ; and at the end of his days he had 

 become generally known throughout the scientific world as one of the 

 most careful, judicious, accurate, and learned investigators and 

 teachers of his favourite subjects. His very earliest work brought 

 him reputation as an embryologist, and herein lay his speciality, 

 so that throughout his long and busy life he was constantly making 

 important contributions to that department of science. 



He retired from his Chair of Anatomy in the University of Glasgow 

 at the age of sixty-eight, having filled it for the long period of twenty- 

 nine years ; and the work he accomplished there " may be said to 

 have been of two kinds : one, the introduction of the modern anatomy 

 and methods of teaching it, by which he laid the foundation of the 

 eminence and success which the Glasgow School of Medicine has since 

 attained, an object which he had warmly at heart ; the other, also 

 contributory to that end, namely, the planning and erection of the 

 New University buildings, in which great undertaking he was from 

 the beginning the moving spirit." 



Succeeding a teacher who had held the Chair of Anatomy in Glas- 

 gow for the long term of fifty-eight years, " it may be readily believed 

 that Allen Thomson's anatomy and methods were a new revelation in 

 the old monastic building of that university." As in Edinburgh, 

 when the third Monro at last (in 1846) made way for John Goodsir, 

 the tide turned from the extra-mural school to the university ; so the 

 Glasgow School of Medicine, when Allen Thomson became Professor 

 of Anatomy, began to take the high rank to which the new colleagues 

 who gradually gathered round him have contributed their part.* 

 * ' Memoir,' by Professor John Struthers, p. 8. 



