Charles Darwin Attends University of Edinburgh

Darwin went to Edinburgh University in October 1825 to study medicine, accompanied by Eras doing his external hospital study. The city was in an uproar over political and religious controversies, and the competitive system where professors were dependent on attracting student fees for income meant that the university was riven with argumentative feuds and conflicts. The monopoly held by established medical professors was challenged by private independent schools, with new ideas of teaching by dissecting corpses giving clandestine trade to bodysnatchers (just shortly before the Burke and Hare scandal).[9]
He attended the official university lectures, but complained that most were stupid and boring, and found himself too sensitive to the sight of blood. He was disgusted by the dull and outdated anatomy lectures of professor Alexander Monro tertius, and later regretted his failure to persevere and learn dissection. Munro's lectures included vehement opposition to George Combe's daringly materialist ideas of phrenology. As the exception to the general dullness, the spectacular chemistry lectures of Thomas Charles Hope were greatly enjoyed by the brothers, but they did not join a student society giving hands-on experience. Darwin regularly attended clinical wards in the hospital despite his great distress about some of the cases, but could only bear to attend surgical operations twice, rushing away before they were completed due to his distress at the brutality of surgery before anaesthetics. He was long haunted by the memory, particularly of an operation on a child.[10][9]
The brothers kept each other company, and made extensive use of the library. Darwin's reading included novels and Boswell's Life of Johnson. He had brought natural history books with him, including a copy of A Naturalist's Companion by George Graves, bought in August in anticipation of seeing the seaside, and he borrowed similar books from the library. The brothers went for regular Sunday walks o...

-Eager that Darwin should not "go astray" his father decided that his son will pursue a medical career as he and his grandfather did before him. Darwin was sent to the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, known as having one of the best medical schools in all of Europe. Once there he joined his brother, Erasmus, having finished most of his medical studies at Cambridge. They took lodgings together in 11 Lothian Street, right across from the University. Darwin did not particularly take a liking to medical studies - the fear of the sight of blood being a major hindrance, but the primary reason for his aversion appears to be that he found the study of medicine incredibly boring.

-His first year at Edinburgh was somewhat uneventful, about the only part of medical school that sparked Darwin's interest were the chemistry lectures given by professor Thomas Hope.

-John Edmonstone, a freed black slave from Guyana, South America, taught Darwin taxidermy. The two of them often sat together for conversation, and John would fill Darwin's head with vivid pictures of the tropical rain forests of South America. These pleasant conversations with John may have later inspired Darwin to dream about exploring the tropics. In any event, the taxidermy skills Darwin learned from him were indispensable during his voyage aboard H.M.S. Beagle in 1831.

-Darwin finished his first year of medical school and spent the summer hiking in the Welsh hills near his home in Shrewsbury. During this time Darwin read Revd. Gilbert White's, "The Natural History of Selborne" and he came away from this book with a much greater appreciation for wildlife. Darwin started making detailed observations of birds and kept a notebook of their habits.

-Darwin began his second year of medical school at Edinburgh, but now he was alone; his brother, Erasmus, having left Edinburgh for London to study anatomy. Darwin spent a lot of time at the university museum, taking notes on the plants and an...