ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides new understandings of Edinburgh’s history and the significance of India’s place within it. It deals with material of different kinds sent from India to Edinburgh. The book examines a different kind of collecting, one targeted at human skulls and other physical remains. Edinburgh’s scientific community has often seemed to be dominated by anatomists, beginning with the Monro Professors, father, son and grandson, who occupied Edinburgh’s Chair of Anatomy between 1720 and 1846. The book is concerned with how Edinburgh trained people who came and went to India. It looks at the role that India, and ‘India-returned’ individuals, played in the debates and conflicts over the introduction of women’s medical education in the city, between 1869 and 1914.
