XVIII. Biographical Notice of the late John Scouler, M.D., LL.D., F.L.S., some time President of the Society

Abstract

Dr. Scouler was born in Glasgow, on the 31st of December, 1804. His early days were spent in the neighbourhood of Kilbarchan, where his father was a calico-printer, and there he received the rudiments of his education. While still at an early age, he entered the University of Glasgow; and, after passing through the literary and philosophical classes, devoted himself to the study of medicine. It was while attending the class of Botany, when the chair of that science was occupied by Dr. (afterwards Sir William) Hooker, and the Botanic Garden of Glasgow was constantly enriched by the introduction of new and exotic plants, which were duly delineated by the accomplished Professor, in the elegant pages of Curtis’s Magazine, that Scouler first gave indication of the bent of his mind towards natural history. Dr. Hooker was not slow to discover and direct the tendency of his youthful pupil, whom he at once marked as being qualified for carrying on original research. In the meantime, Scouler, having completed his medical curriculum in Glasgow, repaired to Paris, where, in the unrivalled collections at the Jardin des Plantes, he enjoyed ample opportunities of extending his knowledge of Comparative Anatomy. A grateful recollection of his obligations to the Museum of Natural History in Paris induced him, at the close of life, to bequeath his ethnological collection to that institution. On his return from France he was, through the influence of Dr. Hooker, appointed surgeon and naturalist to the Hudson’s Bay Company’s ship “William and This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract