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Proceedings of Boyal Society of Edinburgh. 
changeful life with matters which might have stood alone, whose 
connection, however, gave them a place of importance which they 
could not otherwise have had. The mention of a comparatively 
small matter leads him to think of his childhood, and then to 
hasten to dwell on the upward steps of his experience. I notice 
this in answer to the query, “ What has he done ? ” It gives me 
the opportunity early in this sketch of bringing to the front his 
standing as a worker. “ I am anxious,” he says, “ to determine 
some points about my family history. My mother belonged to 
the Dicksons of Gateside and Bankhead, and having lost both 
her parents in Dumfries when about nine years of age, she was 
taken to Gateside and brought up by her uncle, the laird. I was 
horn in Euthwell, 1818, but left, when only two or three years 
old, for Kirkbean, and afterwards Newabbey and Dumfries, whence 
I left for Edinburgh in 1834. My last visit to Dumfries and 
Kewabbey was in 1839 and in 1839-40, and 1840-41 I went to 
Aberdeen as Assistant and Demonstrator of Anatomy to Dr Allen 
Thomson at Marischal College. I returned with him to Edinburgh 
in 1841-42, and when he was appointed to the Chair of Physiology 
I took charge of the Anatomical Rooms under Monro tertius, and 
afterwards lectured on anatomy in Surgeon’s Square, and prepared 
a numerous class of students and graduates from all parts of the 
Empire for taking the Degree of M.D. in Scotland and the 
membership of Surgeon in London. In 1847 I was married, and 
in 1849 I was obliged to seek a warmer climate on account of my 
health. The great improvement of my health in Brazil, and the 
prospect of easy and lucrative medical practice, induced me to 
remain there for thirty-three years; and from the time of my 
return to England in 1882 on to 1896 I had never been to my 
native place ; that is, I had been away from it between seventy 
and eighty years. In 1896 I took Lady Hughes [Mrs Gunning] 
to Dumfries, to show her my native haunts, and we drove by way 
of Glencaple and Bankhead to Euthwell and returned to Dumfries. 
Blindness deprived me of seeing these various places. It was in 
connection with this visit that I thought I should do some little 
thing for my native place, as I had done for the neighbouring 
parish, Ecclefechan, in honour of Carlyle. My chief benefactions 
have been for Edinburgh, where I spent many happy days, hut I 
