1909-10.] Obituary Notice. 573 
should almost immediately become the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine 
and one of the honorary secretaries of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 
Cunningham began his professoriate duties in Edinburgh by an 
inaugural address in which, in characteristic fashion, he dipped into the 
records of the past. Rapidly tracing the rise of the true study of anatomy 
from its beginnings under Vesalius of Padua in 1537, he showed how the 
Edinburgh school began to take form in 1700, although it was not till 
1720 that with Monro Primus the University School of Anatomy assumed 
a definite organisation. The great developments associated with the 
introduction of antiseptic surgery and the application of the Rontgen 
Rays were touched upon in a luminous manner, and the address ended with 
suggestive remarks on the relation between the great size of the brain of 
man and his erect attitude. The succeeding year, when acting as Promotor 
at the July graduation ceremony, Cunningham delivered an address on 
“ The Evolution of the Graduation Ceremonial.” The address contains the 
description of very curious customs and regulations in several of the 
oldest universities of Europe. Most of these have disappeared with the 
advance of the centuries, although the fairly complete mediaeval ceremonial 
still survives in the universities of Spain and of Coimbra in Portugal. 
In a valuable appendix to the address proper the regulations of the 
ceremonial details of graduation as practised to-day in nearly twenty of 
these old universities are given in considerable detail. 
As Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Cunningham carried out a number 
of changes in the curriculum, his guiding principles being the efficiency of 
the teaching and the benefit of the student. One great feature of his 
method of teaching was the regular periodic intercourse between each 
student and himself or one of his assistants. Only in this way, he was 
convinced, could the student be tested as to the progress he was making. 
As one of the honorary secretaries of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 
he was of invaluable service, not only on account of the advice he gave 
the Council on all matters of import, but also during the removal of the 
Society from its former rooms in Princes Street to its new home in 
George Street. 
In December 1908 Cunningham’s health became so unsatisfactory that 
he was relieved of his University duties for the session and ordered to 
Egypt for rest and sunshine. At first the change seemed beneficial, but 
the improvement did not continue. He returned to his home in Edinburgh 
in the month of May in a condition which gave little hope of recovery. 
From this condition he never rallied, but passed away on June 23, 1909, 
at the comparatively early age of fifty-nine. 
