289 
of Edinburgh, Session 1867 - 68 . 
His scientific labours began in controversy, and we find him, in 
1811, defending the views of his brother, Mr (afterwards Sir) 
Humphry Davy, regarding the nature of potassium and sodium, 
and the composition of hydrochloric, or, as it was then called, 
oxymuriatic acid. His advocac}' of his brother’s views was in 
reply to the objections urged against them by Mr Murray, at that 
time a lecturer on Chemistry in Edinburgh. His letters on the 
subject were published in Nicholson’s Journal, and the controversy 
ran through several successive numbers of that periodical. 
It was at this time that he was studying medicine in Edinburgh, 
where he became a member and one of the annual Presidents of 
the Royal Medical Society — a society composed of students, and 
which has numbered amongst its members some of the most dis- 
tinguished names by which medical science has been advanced 
during the present century. Among Davy’s contemporaries in the 
Medical Society were Richard Bright and Marshall Hall. In 
1814 he graduated in Edinburgh as M.D., with a thesis, “De 
Sanguine.” It must have been about the period to which we 
now refer that he assisted his brother in the Royal Institution in 
London, and discovered chloro-carbonic gas. He became a Fellow 
of the Royal Institution of London on 17th February 1814. 
During the Waterloo campaign in 1815, Dr Davy was attached 
to a general hospital in Brussels, and in the following year he was 
appointed staff-surgeon in Ceylon, where he remained until 1820. 
While there he accumulated materials for an account of Ceylon, 
which still continues a standard work on that island. During 
subsequent years he did duty on various foreign stations — the 
Ionian Islands, Malta, Constantinople, and the West Indies. He 
also served on home stations ; and his value as a public servant 
was subsequently recognised by Government in his appointment 
to the post of Inspector-General of Army Hospitals. 
In 1842 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, Edinburgh. 
The opportunities afforded by a life so singularly active and 
varied were not allowed to escape him ; for, with an ardent love of 
inquiry, he possessed powers of observation which have rarely been 
surpassed, and a versatility which enabled him to direct these 
powers into the most diverse channels. 
In comparative anatomy his name will be always associated with 
