Jessie Dobson, MSc.

she had been in the restoration of the Museum following the Second World War. She completed the work, begun by Wood Jones, of remaking the Museum as John Hunter had planned it: a display of specimens to illustrate adaptation of structure to function throughout nature, including the human body, in each physiological system, in health and disease. The remnant of Hunter's collection was refurbished, and the gaps filled by replicas based on his descriptions. Jessie Dobson became an expert in methods of museum display, and an authority on Hunter and his contemporaries. She crowned her work by compiling the Descriptive catalogue of the physiological series in the Hunterian Museum, published by the College in 1970-71 in two large volumes, which was based on a thorough study of Hunter's manuscripts and the various printed catalogues of the old Museum. She also proved an excellent lecturer and demonstrator. After teaching in a girls' school at Eastbourne for several years, she went back to Manchester, qualified as an Associate of the Institute of Secretaries, and was appointed secretary to Professor J. S. B. Stopford, FRS, in the anatomy department of the Manchester University Medical School, and then to his successor, Wood Jones. When, on retiring, Wood Jones was called to London to restore the Hunterian Museum, he persuaded Jessie Dobson to follow him. She had taken the MSc at Manchester in 1944 by thesis, and was inspired by her chief's wide-ranging unconventional interest in all aspects of natural history to explore, and write about, the background of her work in the Museum. Miss Dobson's first book was a useful annotated catalogue ofAnatomical eponyms (1946, 2nd ed. 1962). This was followed in 1954 by a life of William Clift, FRS, who was appointed the first Curator of the Hunterian Museum when the government gave it to the Royal College of Surgeons in trust for the nation. Sir Richard Owen, the great comparative anatomist, who was Clift's son-in-law and successor, developed the Museum on a vast scale before moving to the British Museum to refound the natural history departments. Just before she died, Jessie Dobson had completed a life of Owen, which awaits publication. She published in 1969 a life of John Hunter, which showed him in the context of his times, and explained the didactic purpose of his collecting. After retiring, she played an active part in many societies. She was elected a Trustee …