Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/186

 been no professors of anatomy or of medicine in the university of Edinburgh, and in 1720 Monro was appointed the first university professor of anatomy, but was not formally inducted till 1725. Thenceforward he gave a course of lectures every year from October to May for thirty-nine years, beginning always with the history of the subject, then treating of osteology, then of the soft parts, then of the relation of the anatomy of animals to that of man, then of surgical operations, and finally of general physiology. In 1725 he married Isabella, second daughter of Sir Donald MacDonald of the Isle of Skye. In 1726 he published 'Osteology, a Treatise on the Anatomy of the Human Bones,' which went through several editions, to the sixth of which, 1758, is added an account of the nerves. He begins with an account of the periosteum, thence proceeds to the structure of bone and of joints, and then to the detailed description of the several bones. A medico-chirurgical society was formed in Edinburgh of which he was secretary, and he edited in 1732 its first volume of 'Transactions,' and subsequently five other volumes, writing in them many original papers, all of which are reprinted in the collected edition of his 'Works,' published in Edinburgh in 1781. After the battle of Prestonpans in 1745 he attended the wounded on the field, and while firmly attached to the house of Hanover did all in his power to obtain a pardon for Dr. Cameron the Jacobite. In 1764 he resigned his professorship, but continued to give clinical lectures at the hospital, and in that year he published 'An Account of the Inoculation of Small-pox in Scotland.' His separate papers, fifty-three in number, are on a great variety of medical subjects. He had observed the results of the falling of solid bodies into the appendix vermiformis, and shows much sagacity in an argument establishing the modern view that jaundice is very rarely, if ever, due to any cause but obstruction of the common bile duct. He knew a great deal of comparative anatomy and was well read in authors, especially admiring Wiseman among the older surgeons. He was a muscular man of middle stature, and was in the habit of being bled twice a year. In 1762 he had influenza with severe vesical catarrh, and he once fractured his heel tendon, and has written (Collected Works, p. 661) an account of his own case and cure. He died of a pelvic cancer 10 July 1767, after a long and painful illness, the chief symptoms of which are described in a letter to his son, Dr. Donald Monro [q. v.], dated 11 June 1766. A portrait of Monro, painted by Allan Ramsay, is in the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. It was engraved by Basire and prefixed to the collected edition of his 'Works,' published by his son Dr. Alexander Monro secundus [q. v.], Edinburgh, 1781.  MONRO, ALEXANDER, secundus, M.D. (1733–1817), anatomist, younger son of Alexander Monro primus [q. v.], by Isabella, second daughter of Sir Donald MacDonald, bart., of the Isle of Skye, was born at Edinburgh 20 May 1733. He was sent with his elder brother Donald [q. v.] to the school of Mr. Mundell, and in 1752 entered the university of Edinburgh. He occasionally lectured for his father from 1753. and on 12 July 1755 was formally appointed professor of anatomy and surgery as coadjutor to his father. He took the degree of M.D. 17 Oct. 1755, the subject of his inaugural dissertation being ' De Testibus et Semine in variis Animalibus.' It is dedicated to his father, and shows that he had worked diligently at minute anatomy. Soon after graduation he went to London, where he attended William Hunter's lectures, and afterwards to Paris, Leyden, and Berlin. At Leyden University he matriculated 17 Sept. 1757 (, Index, p. 70). He resided at Berlin in the house of Professor Meckel (Johann Friedrich, the elder), and worked under that distinguished anatomist, his obligations to whom he used to acknowledge in nearly every course of lectures which he delivered. In 1758 he returned to Edinburgh, was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and 1 May 1759 was elected a fellow. He became secretary of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh in succession to his father. This society pub- lished three volumes of essays. The first, which appeared in 1754, contains 'a description of the vesiculse seminales' and 'observations on gravid uteri' by him; the second, issued in 1756, 'a description of a monster without head, arms, heart, or legs,' and 'the history of a genuine volvulus;' while in the last, in 1771, he wrote a paper on the effect of drugs on the nervous system. He published two controversial 'observations' on the lymphatics in 1758, maintaining that he, in a short essay printed at Berlin in 1758, and reprinted in 1761 and 1770, 'De Venis Lymphaticis Valvulosis,' and not William Hunter, had first correctly described the general communications of the lymphatic system. Frederick Hoffman had, however, preceded both Monro and Hunter in the description. In 1783 he published in Edinburgh 'Observations on the Structure and Functions of the 