BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 449
Dunkeld. Subsequently he spent a few years as tutor in one or two respectable
families ; but abandoning his prospects in the Church, probably from some new
impulse given to an early bias, he now embraced the medical profession ; and
after due attendance on the prelections of the medical Professors in the University
of Edinburgh, he took the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1796.
Immediately thereafter he repaired to London, and attended for a short time
the anatomical lectures of Dr. Marshall of Thavies Inn.
The
number of his pupils at the outset was limited ; but his talents and industry
soon secured for him a reputation and a success which length of years only
tended to strengthen and augment. In 1804 the Royal College of Surgeons
adopted a resolution highly in his favour, by which it was declared that attendance
on his lectures should in future qualify for passing at Surgeons’ Hall; and
in 1815 he was admitted a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, and
a resident fellow the following year. Dr. Barclay was an enthusiast in his profession
; and besides his eminent qualifications, acquired by extensive and
careful study, he was peculiarly happy in gaining the esteem, and carrying along
with him the attention, of the student. Possessed of the most inflexible goodhumour,
his discourses were not less profound and luminous than lively and
interesting, from the appropriate anecdotes with which he seldom failed to illustrate
whatever topic he might be engaged in discussing.’ In 1825 Dr. Barclay
entered into partnership with Dr. Robert Knox, at that time Conservator of the
Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. He had for some time previously
been in a declining state of health, and his speech latterly became indistinct
from the effects of palsy. He died on the 21st of August 1826, and his remains
were interred in Restalrig Churchyard. His funeral was attended by many of
his friends, and by the members of the Royal College of Surgeons in a body.
Besides his
Introductory Lectures, published since his death by his friend Sir George Ballingall,
Professor of Military Surgery in the University of Edinburgh (who
prefixed to the volume a Memoir of Dr. Barclay), he wrote the article Physi+
logy in the third edition (completed in 1797) of the Encyelopcedia Britannica.
In 1803 he gave to the world a new anatomical nomenclature-a desideratum
much felt by students in the science. It has not, however, been generally
adopted, though the advantages to be derived from a precise and consistent
vocabulary are universally admitted. In 1808 appeared his treatise on the
“ Muscular Motions of the Eody,” followed, in 18 12, by another, descriptive
Dr. Barclay began his first course of lectures in Edinburgh in 1797.
Dr. Barclay was the author of several valuable medical works.
Connected with this Print we have heard the following anecdote, characteristic of Dr. Barclay’s
habitual good humour :-Having learned that the artist was engaged in the Caricature, the Doctor,
accompanied by his friend Sir George Ballingall, called on Mr. Ray, to whom he waa unknown ;
and being ushered into his working-room, was immediately recognised and named by the late Earl
of Buchan, who happened to be sitting there. This occasioned some degree of embarrassment, from
which Mr. Kay waa instantly relieved by the Doctor obsewing that he understood he waa engaged
in a print, in which he, the Doctor, was to have a conspicuous place, and that he had come to inform
Mr. Ray that, if he had not already got his likeness, he was prepared to sit for his portrait whenever
the artist pleased.
VOL 11. 3M