The year 2009 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of “On The Origin of Species.” The University of Cincinnati is marking these anniversaries with a year-long celebration of Darwin’s life and work. This series on the life of Charles Darwin is part of the celebration.
Charles Darwin entered Edinburgh University in October 1825 for formal training as a surgeon. In Darwin’s time, Edinburgh University was widely considered to house the best medical school in Britain. The choice of medicine as a career, however, was more the decision of Darwin’s father, Robert, than it was of Charles himself. Darwin had little enthusiasm for the practice of medicine, and only the prospect of joining his brother Erasmus (already a medical student at Edinburgh) seemed to excite him.Darwin’s lack of enthusiasm turned to serious doubt soon after arrival. He found the anatomy and physiology lectures uninteresting and the surgery training ghastly. In a time when medical anesthesia was rare, surgery was often a hurried, brutal, bloody affair. Successful operations relied as much on the surgeon’s speed as his skill. The repeated dissections required of medical students produce an abundance of severed limbs and opened torsos in the dissecting rooms. Darwin called the surgery theater a “charnel house.”
Because of his aversion to surgery, Darwin never learned proper dissection techniques. This lack of skill with the scalpel would be a detriment later in life. Upon his return to England in 1836 (following service on the H.M.S. Beagle), Darwin was compelled to send many of his collected specimens to others more expert in dissection for study. One skill Darwin did learn in his first year at Edinburgh, however, was taxidermy. In early 1826, Darwin took “stuffing” lessons from a freed slave named John Edmonstone.
Summer 1826 found Darwin home in Shrewsbury, where he enjoyed hunting with his Wedgwood cousins and hiking with Erasmus. The time spent with his brother that summer was particularly meaningful to Charles. Erasmus had completed his studies at Edinburgh and would soon be attending anatomy school in London.
Darwin returned to Edinburgh in November 1826, but almost immediately his medical studies began to slip. Much of his time was spent scouring local beaches with the influential (and radical) invertebrate naturalist Robert Grant. Darwin soon developed a fascination with the innocuous sponges, sea mats, and sea pens inhabiting the shallow tidal zones. This fascination would return decades later when Darwin would spend six years establishing himself as world expert on barnacles. Darwin also joined a number of informal societies dedicated to the open (sometimes heated) discussion of contemporary topics. Prominent among these were the Plinian Society and the Wernerian Natural History Society.
By spring 1827, Robert Darwin, always the watchful father, knew that Charles would never become a physician. Some other career appropriate to his social position would have to be considered. Law or the clergy appeared to be the most promising. Determining that the life of a country parson would probably best suit his son, Robert withdrew Charles (recently turned 18) from Edinburgh in April 1827 and made provision for enrolling him at Cambridge University.
There are several outstanding biographies of Charles Darwin readily available to the public. The definitive biography is a two volume work by E. Janet Browne titled “Charles Darwin: Voyaging” and “Charles Darwin: The Power of Place.” “Darwin: the Life of a Tormented Evolutionist,” by Adrian Desmond and James Moore is also highly regarded. For a shorter biography of Darwin try “The Reluctant Mr. Darwin,” by David Quammen.