Allan Ramsay 1713-1784

Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh and Medicine, 1976, no.147

The sitter was one of Scotland's foremost surgeons.  He was the son of John Monro,an army surgeon, and his wife, Jean Forbes, daughter of Captain James Forbes.

He attended the University of Edinburgh between 1710 and 1713, but did not take a degree.  In 1717 he travelled to London to attend the anatomy course of William Cheselden.  The following year Monro enrolled as a medical student at the University of Leiden, where he studied chemistry and clinical medicine.  He returned to Edinburgh in 1720, and the following year became the first Professor of Anatomy at Edinburgh University,  a post which he held until 1760.  Monro's Professorship, unlike that of his predecessors, was clearly defined as a University Chair, and his appointment is often seen as the beginning of the Edinburgh medical school.  Monro taught an annual anatomy course, and by 1751 attendance at his lectures had reached 200 students. 

In 1725 he married Isabella Macdonald, third daughter of Sir Donald MacDonald, Bt., of Sleat, on the Isle of Skye.  Her portrait was also painted by Ramsay (Smart, op. cit. no.370).  They had three sons and five daughters.  Their eldest son became a lawyer, and their youngest son, Alexander Monro (1733-1817) became a distinguished professor of medicine at Edinburgh. 

Monro was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1723, and some years later also became a member of Ramsay's 'Select Society' in Edinburgh.  The Society was founded in the spring of 1754, and its objectives were laid down as being 'literary discussions, philosophical enquiry, and improvement in public speaking'.  The topics of religion and Jacobitisim were expressly forbidden.  The members from 1756 included the eminent philosophers David Hume and Adam Smith, as well as the architetcs John and James Adam, and numerous members of the aristocracy.