According to his detractors, Monro was an uninspired anatomist who did not compare with his brilliant father or grandfather as a teacher or scientist.

His students included Charles Darwin who asserted that Monro "made his lectures on human anatomy as dull as he was himself.

[3] He then briefly studied in London under the Scottish born anatomist James Wilson, and then in Paris, returning to Edinburgh in 1799.

[4] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1798, his proposers being Andrew Duncan, John Hill and Thomas Charles Hope.

Two thirds of the professors were appointed by the Tory-controlled Council on the basis of their party list subject to approval by the Kirk, with little regard for ability.

In some cases families treated the university chairs as hereditary, and critics alleged that Alexander Monro III exemplified the "mediocrity" this could produce.

"[7] For this reason, Charles Darwin, a student at the University of Edinburgh in 1825, was disgusted by Monro arriving at lectures still bloody from the dissecting room.

One of the murderers, William Burke, was hanged on 28 January 1829, after which he was famously dissected at the Edinburgh Medical College by Monro.

In 1841 Dr Robert Halliday Gunning came to Edinburgh to oversee Monro's anatomy rooms and work as his assistant.

[10] Monro died at Craiglockhart House, south-west of Edinburgh on 10 March 1859 and is buried in Lord's Row against the western wall of Dean Cemetery.

[12] In the 1830s he was living, with his large family and first wife, at 1 Great Stuart Street on the Moray Estate in Edinburgh's west end.