Background

Alexander Ramsay was born in 1754 in, or near, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Education

From an early age he devoted himself to the sciences, especially anatomy, and in due time, he studied under the masters of the day, William Cumberland Cruikshank and his pupil, Matthew Baillie, of the Hunterian school in London, and under Alexander Monro, the second, in Edinburgh.

Career

He returned to his native city about 1790, where he began independent teaching and founded an anatomical society.

He had considerable success and established a museum, lecture theatre, and a dissecting-room, where he stated that "fifty subjects a year were dissected in the highest style". Although popular as a teacher, he was constantly at odds with his contemporaries.

For many years, it was his dream to emigrate to America, and in 1801, after disposing of his property, and with only a letter to a clergyman in his pocket, he sailed, - a solitary, embittered, but highly learned man. He found his way to Fryeburg, Maine, "the American wilderness" he had contemplated, and there built an institute of anatomy in accord with his own ideas. The school, as might be expected, was never a success, and, although Ramsay was received in the United States with a certain amount of cordiality in academic circles, his uncivil temper soon alienated his new friends.

Nathan Smith, recognizing his ability as an anatomist and considering him the best in the United States, secured him for a course of lectures at the Dartmouth Medical School in 1808. For about eight years Ramsay lectured in neighboring states, practised medicine, unsuccessfully sought funds from state legislatures for his "institute, " and worked on his atlas of anatomy. His lectures were ill-attended and, after a period in New York, he went back to Europe, where he remained from 1810 to 1816. There, too, he was a failure as a popular lecturer, in spite of his powerful friends and patrons, Matthew Baillie, Sir Joseph Banks, then the president of the Royal Society, and the Duke of Sussex. At this time he published the first part of his book, Anatomy of the Heart, Cranium, and Brain, the plates of which he had drawn and engraved himself at Fryeburg.

On his return to America he became an itinerant lecturer on anatomy and natural philosophy, traveling throughout eastern Canada, New England, New York, and even to Charleston, South Carolina.

He was granted an honorary M. D. degree by the University of St. Andrews in 1805, and his few carefully written papers were accepted by the leading medical journals. His book was reasonably well received, but no one, with the possible exception of Nathan Smith, could tolerate the man for more than a short time.

He died at Parsonsfield, Maine, while giving a course of lectures, and was buried in Fryeburg.

Achievements

• He was famous for his book Anatomy of the Heart, Cranium, and Brain, the plates of which he had drawn and engraved himself at Fryeburg. Although it was projected in five volumes, only the sections on the brain and heart were ever issued, the first edition in 1812 and a second in 1813. The work is one of considerable beauty and accuracy. His best work, aside from his teaching of anatomy, was accomplished during the yellow-fever epidemic in New York in 1803, when he abolished blood-letting and furnished a liberal diet in opposition to the usual practice of the day.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Address and Anatomical Prospectus (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Address and Anatomical Prospectus Organized...)

  • The Scientific Roll, and Magazine of Systematized Notes, Vol. 1: November, 1880; Climate (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Scientific Roll, and Magazine of Systema...)

Views

Quotations: "I acknowledge only two superiors as anatomists - God Almighty and John Hunter, " he once said, a remark which could not have endeared him to the all-powerful Monro.

Personality

Bradley describes Ramsay as "a sort of monstrous compound of personal deformity, immense learning, ferocious insolence and ill-temper, and inordinate vanity". He quarreled with his colleagues, one after another, both in Scotland and America. His work, although admired by his contemporaries, was, necessarily, done alone.

Connections

Friend:

Nathan Smith