What Darwin learned in medical school.

摘要

What image comes to mind when we think of Charles Darwin? Is it the young man clambering over the lava beds of the Galapagos? Or perhaps the somewhat mournful white-bearded old man? Either way, young naturalist or aged savant, he is the very father-figure of evolution.Almost certainly you would not see him as a medical student. Yet there he was in Edinburgh, in 1825, and then again in 1826, following in well-trodden family footsteps, enrolled in medical studies. His father Robert despaired of his 16-year-old son ever amounting to anything; late in life, Darwin recalled his father having told him that "you care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family". Robert was himself a physician, as was his famous father Erasmus before him. All the doctors in the Darwin extended family had been trained in Edinburgh-and now Charles was to join his older brother Erasmus ("Ras") to learn the family trade.