Keith, Sir Arthur (1866–1955)

Bill Cooke

During his era, Sir Arthur Keith was one of the world's most prominent anatomists and defenders of Darwinism. As Keith himself noted in his autobiography, he seemed fated to espouse causes and theories that fail to carry conviction, a notion that became even more accurate than he realized when he wrote it in 1947. Arthur Keith was born on February 5, 1866, in Old Machar in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. His father was John Keith and his mother, Jessie, was from the Macpherson family, also from Aberdeenshire. The family was sufficiently prosperous for Arthur to receive a good education at Gordon's College and Marishal College at Aberdeen University, where he graduated with first-class honors in 1888. Keith did postgraduate study at Leipzig before spending three years in Thailand, officially on business for a rubber company, but also to collect botanical specimens for Kew. While in Thailand, Keith studied the musculature of the ...

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