Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/559

 Dr.w.R Smith ADELAIDE AND VICINITY 533 was for two years President of the University Philosophical Society, a society which has doae much to mould the minds of many of th(> best-known Scottish thinkers and writers of the present day. In 188/] he extended the already wide field of his l(arning to Medicine. Upon entering that study he gained a Vans Dunlop scholarship of the value of ;/;'300, awarded for the highest total of marks at the Preliminary I^xaminations for the years 1883-84, securing the scholarship in open com])etiti(>n with some of the foremost graduates of the Scottish and English Universities. Immediatelv afterwards he was appointed Senior Assistant Profes.sor of Natural History, one of th(Chairs in the Faculty of Medicine ; and held for five years the post of Demonstrator of Zoology in the University of which he had been sf) successful a student. 'Flie labor and honor of re-organising and conducting the work of the largest biological labonitorv in the United Kingdom fell to Dr. Ramsay Smith, who soon became one of the best-known and most highly appreciated lecturers on the staff of the University. He also, during that time, lectured to the classes for women in connection with the Edinburgh University. In 189 1 he was appointed to the post of Demonstrator of Anatomy in the Edinburgh .School of Medicine, and Lecturer on Biology; and in 1S92 he was ap]K)inted one of the Examiners for the Degrees in Medicine and .Surgery of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh ; and the F"aculty of Physicians and Surgeons, (jlasgow. In addition to this work, he conducted a large number of scientific investigations for the Fishery Board for .Scotland. His paper on the " Pood of Pishes," read before the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1892, was reckoned the most complete and comprehensive contribution ever made on that subject, embracing the results of four years' investigations carried on for that Board. He graduated in Medicine and .Surgery in 1892, after completing his course of training several years ]:)reviously. His interest in education was not confined to University work, but extended to common school and secondary school education ; and he was, at the earliest age on record, made a Pellow of the Educational Institute of Scotland in appreciation of the services he rendered to education, and especially to teachers in the matter of fixed tenure of office. All this time his interest in social problems took practical shai)e. I*"or man)' years he was an active office-bearer of Free St. (ieorofe's Church, Pxlinburgh, and there was associated with all the foremost men of the time in the Fr(e Church and other churches in Scotland. He was an active member of various societies — the University Total Abstinence Society, Athletic Club, and White Cross Society ; and although not a member of the P^dinburgh Social Union, which has gone far to solve practically the problem of the leavening of the masses, he gave that society the greatest help possible by breaking up, by his intimate knowledge of the intricacies of legal and sanitary procedure, extensive rings, and combinations of rings, of slum owners that had defied both law and public opinion for years. In 1892 Dr. Ram.say Smith engaged in private practice, and also in sanitary work for the Local Ciovernment Board for Scotland. His services in this direction were recognised by the Board in the warmest manner ; and it was admittedly through his exertions that the Board was enabled to carry out .sanitary reforms of a most extensive and thorough nature. Dr. Ramsay Smith, on deciding to devote him.self more exclusively to medical