But Charles Darwin was not destined to become a doctor and indeed did not enjoy his medical studies. He was apparently averse to Obeticholic Acid datasheet surgery (pre-anesthesia, of course) and found the didactic lectures tedious. (I might add, for any parents of prospective medical students, that our curriculum has changed

significantly since 1826, and our reputation for taught components is excellent!). As a result, Darwin filled his time collecting insects and observing natural history and marine life. Ultimately he dropped out of medicine, and, under the guidance of his father, enrolled as an undergraduate in Cambridge University to study to become a clergyman….and the rest, as they say, is history. In modern terms, Darwin’s time as a medical student would be considered a failure, but his time was not spent aimlessly; he learned taxidermy and joined the Plinian Natural History Society, presenting a paper there on the marine biology of the Firth of Forth.1 He also came into contact AG-014699 manufacturer with Robert Grant, who, using sea sponges as a model, observed and published evidence for

a “transmutation of species.”1 Edinburgh in the early 19th century was also one of the major settings of the European enlightenment and was undoubtedly an exciting place to be a student. Moreover, Darwin came from a strong tradition of free-thinking intellectuals who advocated empiricism, observation, and analysis to define and make sense of the natural world. His great grandfather had discovered a plesiosaur fossil in a field adjacent to the family home. He thought this was a fossilized crocodile, but like several of that age was MCE struck by the parallels in anatomy and developmental process that characterized not only the flora and

fauna around him but that was also present in fossils.2 Indeed, Erasmus Darwin had speculated that all life may have evolved (my term, not his) from a common putative ancestor in his work “Zoonomia,” itself an influence on Robert Grant.2 Charles Darwin’s masterwork of course provided, through natural selection, a mechanism by which evolution could work. I sometimes worry that the relentless increase in pressure of the curriculum within our universities, particularly in vocational subjects such as medicine, risks stifling creative and innovative thinking demonstrated so perfectly by Darwin’s early career. It is of course as a direct result of the works of Darwin and others that we now know so much about the evolution and development of the process underpinning metabolism. Much is now known about the genomes and fundamental metabolic functions in organisms as diverse as bacteria and yeasts to the nematode, fruit fly, and xenopus, in addition to birds and mammals.