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Robin Fraser
Thorough teaching of human anatomy is the core undergraduate business of the University of Otago's Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology in Dunedin. This may seem a routine and, in this modern era, an unexciting exercise; however, (as reported in this Journal issue) the Department's careful enquiries into the profile of body donors, reasons for donating, and changes in motivation over many years, indicates their contemporary commitment to this essential training of our undergraduate students in normal structure.1
Otago, by an accident in history, has an archive of valuable and historic anatomy and other medical books and manuscripts in its Medical Library, most of which originally belonged to one or other of three men; father, son, and grandson, each called Alexander Monro.2 These men in succession, over a period of 126 years from 1720 to 1846, held the Chair of Anatomy at Edinburgh University. They were also responsible for the teaching of surgery. Thus the importance of structure, function, and healing go back over the centuries, from Edinburgh (in the north) to Dunedin (the Edinburgh of the south).
This legacy came to our Medical School via the great grandson, David Monro, a doctor-turned-immigrant farmer and politician in Nelson, New Zealand, who had inherited the collection and donated it to his friend and son-in-law, the Edinburgh-trained explorer, naturalist and surgeon Sir James Hector, Founding President of the New Zealand Institute (later the Royal Society of New Zealand) and Chancellor of the University of New Zealand.3
Hector, who first was employed in New Zealand in Otago as a geologist, passed this treasure to our Dunedin...