John Goodsir (20 March 1814 – 6 March 1867) was a Scottish anatomist and a pioneer in the formulation of cell theory. Early life Goodsir was born on 20 March 1814 in Anstruther, Fife, the son of Elizabeth Dunbar Taylor and John Goodsir (1742–1848), a medical practitioner in the town. He was baptised on 17 April 1814. His younger brother, Joseph Taylor Goodsir, entered the ministry and became minister in Lower Largo. His younger brother, Harry Goodsir, perished on the Franklin expedition. Another brother, Robert, (b. 1824) qualified as a doctor and sailed twice to the Arctic searching for his brother Harry. His youngest brother, Archibald, (b. 1826) qualified as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. In December 1826, at the age of 12, Goodsir entered the University of St Andrews, where his classes included classics and mathematics. The following year he was apprenticed to the surgeon and dentist Robert Nasmyth, at 78 Great King Street in Edinburgh's New Town. This allowed him to enter the Edinburgh University Medical School and also attend classes at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He finished his apprenticeship with Nasmyth in 1833, and qualified as Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1835. He then moved back to Anstruther to work in his father's medical practice, which allowed him to resume his boyhood hobby of searching the local coastline along the Firth of Forth for all forms of wildlife. The specimens which he collected formed the basis of the collection he later developed as a museum conservator. In Edinburgh Goodsir had befriended Edward Forbes, who would later become Regius Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh, and George Day, later Chandos Professor of Anatomy and Medicine of the University of St Andrews. Together with Goodsir's brother Joseph they rented a flat at 21 Lothian Street close to the university, which became a meeting place for scientists, writers and artists, who together called themselves the Brotherhood of the Friends of Truth. During his surgical and dental apprenticeship with Nasmyth Goodsir had started to collect human teeth. From studies of these he made the important observation that deciduous teeth were not the 'parents' of permanent teeth but developed independently. In 1839, he published a noted paper on this topic. The following year he gave a paper to the British Association for the Advancement of Science