Abstract
NOTWITHSTANDING his advanced age, the announcement of the death of Sir Robert Christison will be received with universal regret. He died on January 27, from the effects of a cold caught a month previously. Sir Robert's father was for many years Professor of Humanity in the University of Edinburgh, where the son was born on July 18, 1797. He attended first the High School, and subsequently the Arts Classes at tfce University. Having been well grounded in literature and general science, he turned his attention to medical studies, and graduated as Doctor of Medicine in 1819. Proceeding to the schools of London and Paris, in the latter city he became a pupil of Robiquet, the eminent chemist and pharmacien, in whose laboratory he worked assiduously, and, as he used often to say in after life, with signal advantage. Here, too, he is understood to have prosecuted, under the celebrated Orfila, that study of toxicology to which he had all along shown a special bent, and in which he was destined to achieve so important results. Shortly after his return to Edinburgh the young physician was, in 1822; appointed to the Uni versity Chair of Medical Jurisprudence, in succession to Dr. Alison. This post he occupied till 1832, when he relinquished it to assume the Chair of Materia Medica, rendered vacant by the death of Dr. A. Duncan, and for the clinical duties of which he was well qualified by hos pital practice; while for its general work he had been thoroughly equipped by those old studies under Robiquet, followed up, in the interval, by diligent examination of every fresh pharmaceutical discovery.
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Sir Robert Christison . Nature 25, 339–340 (1882). https://doi.org/10.1038/025339e0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/025339e0