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In consequence of the high reputation which Dr.
Reid had acquired as the anatomical demonstrator
of Old Surgeons' Hall during three years' attendance,
he was unanimously called, by his brethren of Edin-
burgh, to occupy a more honourable and important
office. It was that of lecturer on physiology in the
Extra-academical Medical School, now left vacant
by the death of Dr. Fletcher, author of the Rudi-
ments of Physiology. Into this new sphere he re-
moved with considerable reluctance, for he was diffi-
dent of his powers as a lecturer, which were still
untried. His perseverance, however, not only over-
came his timidity, but enabled him to become as dis-
tinguished in the oratorical as he had formerly been
in the conversational form of instruction. He now
also had more leisure for self-improvement, as his
course for the year commenced in November, and
terminated with the close of April. In 1838 he was
appointed pathologist to the Royal Infirmary of
Edinburgh, where his duties consisted in collecting
the weekly statistics of the institution, and conduct-
ing the post-mortem examinations of the patients who
had died in the hospital; and in the following year
he was also appointed superintendent of the infirmary.
In this last capacity, we are told in the Monthly
Journal of Medical Science, "he carried into his in-
quiries concerning morbid anatomy and pathology,
the same accuracy in observing facts, and the same
cautious spirit in drawing inferences from them, that
characterized his anatomical and physiological re-
searches. He at once saw the necessity of making
his position serviceable to the advancement of medi-
cal knowledge, and, struck with the inconsistencies
which existed as to the absolute and relative size
and weight of the principal organs of the body, he
commenced another laborious investigation on this
subject. He introduced weighing-machines into the
pathological theatre, by means of which the weight
of the entire body was first ascertained, and then,
respectively, the weights of the different organs."
In 1839 Dr. Reid was candidate for the chair of
medicine in King's College, Aberdeen, but was un-
successful; in the same year he was candidate for
the chair of anatomy in Marischal College, and was
again unsuccessful. These disappointments, how-
ever, he bore with such good humour, as conscious-
ness of desert and hope of better luck in store, act-
ing upon a naturally cheerful, buoyant spirit, seldom
fail to supply. Already he had broken ground, and
most successfully, into those discoveries upon the ana-
tomy and physiology of the heart, and especially of
the nervous system, upon which he may be said to
have established for himself a European reputation;
and in the latter department he had produced and
read before the British Association an epitome of his
"Experimental Investigation into the Functions of the
Eight Pair of Nerves, or the Glosso-pharyngeal,
Pneumogastric, and Spinal Accessory." The light
which was dawning upon him in the course of these
investigations was soon to be worth more than the
distinction that can be conferred by a seat upon the
bench of a college senatus consultum. All this
was soon after attested at a public scientific meeting,
in which it was declared, among other just encomi-
ums, that Dr. Reid, by his "original investigations
into the physiology of the nervous system, had made
the profession acquainted with valuable facts, which
had at once enriched the science their discoverer
cultivated, and procured for himself an extensive and
enviable reputation." Such was the testimony of
Professor Alison, one of the most competent of judges
upon such a subject.
Having now attained a high reputation in his own
favourite walks of science,  an  appointment  soon
VOL.   III.
offered that consoled Dr. Reid for his late mischances.
This was the professorship of anatomy in the univer-
sity of St. Andrews, which was conferred upon him
in March, 1841. He had now only reached his
thirty-first year; and from what he had already ac-
complished, combined with his robust, vigorous,
healthy constitution, it was hoped that a long life
was yet in store for him, as well as an ample field
of research and discovery. He commenced in win-
ter the course of lectures that properly belonged to
his professorship; but as this class, composed of
medical students only, was too limited a sphere, he
also delivered a course of lectures on comparative
anatomy and general physiology, which all were
free to attend gratuitously, whether from town or
college. A delighted crowd usually assembled at
these prelections, composed not only of professors,
ministers, and students from several classes, but also
of the citizens of St. Andrews, whose earnest ani-
mated attention would of itself have been a rich
reward to any public instructor. But even amidst
all this, Dr. Reid felt that there was something
wanting. St. Andrews was not a medical school of
any mark, as most of the county students destined
for the healing profession were wont to pass over to
the university of Edinburgh. Besides, it was difficult
to procure subjects, without which anatomical disser-
tations are all but useless—for even yet there still
lingered among the living of Fifeshire that jealous
care of their dead, which was placarded not a hun-
dred years ago over one of their cemeteries, in these
ominous words: "Whoever enters this churchyard
will be shot." These drawbacks he felt so sensitively
that he was impatient for wider action, until 1844,
when St. Andrews was converted into a happy home
for him, by his marriage with Miss Ann Blyth.
Four years followed, in which his researches were
chiefly directed to the natural history of the marine
animals so plentiful on the Fifeshire coast, and the
results of which he communicated in several papers
to the Annals and Magazine of Natural History.
In 1848 he made a collection, in one volume, of the
essays which he had published in several scientific
journals during the course of thirteen years. The
work is entitled Physiological, Anatomical, and
Pathological Researches, and consists of twenty-eight
articles. Of the value of these, especially of the six
that contain the results of his inquiries into the func-
tions of living organs, it would be impossible to
convey an adequate idea, without such a full analysis
as would far exceed the plan and limits of our work.
We content ourselves with quoting, from a host of
congenial critics who reviewed the volume, the
opinions of one who was well qualified to estimate
its worth. "As a physiologist," says Dr. J. H.
Bennett, "he [Dr. Reid] may be considered to have
been unsurpassed; not, indeed, because it has fallen
to his lot to make those great discoveries or wide
generalizations which constitute epochs in the history
of the science, but because he possessed such a rare
degree of caution and conscientiousness in all his
researches, that no kind of investigation, whether
literary, anatomical, physiological, or pathological,
that could illustrate any particular fact, did he ever
allow to be neglected. . . . His volume contains
more original matter and sound physiology than will
be found in any work that has issued from the British
press for many years."
Dr. Reid was now a happy man in the fullest
sense of the term. With a happy home, and an ex-
tensive circle of friends, by whom he was honoured
and beloved, his scientific aspirations were every
day advancing towards that termination upon which
his heart had been fixed for years. "My worldly
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