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the next dux was one who afterwards has done good work in 
another profession, the Rev. John M‘Laren, D.D., minister of 
Larbert. 
On leaving the High School, he studied at the University of this 
city until he obtained his medical degree. When he graduated 
as Doctor of Medicine, a gold medal was presented to him for his 
thesis on Diseases of the Liver. 
He subsequently went abroad for the purpose of further study 
at the great medical schools of Vienna and Paris. He resided at 
the latter capital for eighteen months, and whilst there acquired a 
remarkable fluency in the French language, which he ever after- 
wards retained. On his return to Edinburgh he was appointed 
House Physician to the Infirmary, in which capacity he had acted 
prior to going abroad, and not long after this he was elected 
Physician to the Royal Public Dispensary and the New Town 
Dispensary. He subsequently became a Lecturer on Medical 
Jurisprudence, Pathologist to the Royal Infirmary, and Teacher 
of Pathology and Morbid Anatomy in the Extra-Mural School at 
Surgeons’ Hall. On Dr Alexander Wood retiring from his 
Lectureship at the College of Surgeons, Dr Haldane began to 
lecture on the Practice of Physic in that institution, and at the 
same time he gave lectures on Clinical Medicine at the Infirmary. 
His classes were very popular with the students, as he had the 
reputation of being one of the best teachers in the Edinburgh 
School of Medicine. In 1876, about three hundred of his former 
pupils, among whom were many of our best known practitioners, 
presented him with an address in which his powers of accurate 
diagnosis, the clearness and grace of his style as a lecturer, and his 
vivid powers of description, were adverted to in terms of grateful 
appreciation. 
In 1852 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of 
Physicians, and he afterwards held successively the offices of 
Secretary and President of that body. Whilst acting as Secretary 
to the College of Physicians, he took an important part in promot- 
ing the scheme under which the Royal Colleges of Physicians and 
Surgeons in Edinburgh, with the Faculty of Physicians and 
Surgeons of Glasgow, arranged to grant a conjoint examination 
and diploma to their students, known as the Double Qualification. 
