Robert Walmsley, Emeritus Professor of Anatomy at
the University of St Andrews, died on 24 August 1998
aged 92. He was appointed Bute Professor of
Anatomy in St Andrews University in 1946, after a
distinguished career in the University of Edinburgh,
where he was appointed demonstrator in Anatomy
with J. C. Brash as professor and E. B. Jamieson as
senior lecturer. He carried out studies on the vertebral
column and the knee joint with John Bruce (later Sir
John Bruce), Professor of Surgery in Edinburgh, with
whom he was associated in the production of 3
editions of a textbook of surgical anatomy. His work
on the vascular system of the whale, conducted at the
Carnegie Institute of Embryology in Baltimore, USA,
was the subject of his thesis for the MD (Edinburgh
University) which was awarded with honours and
gold medal in 1937.