Over a period of weeks, Blair dissected the elephant, taking careful note of all the bones, muscles and organs, and then had the resultant skeleton mounted for public display.
In 1707 he dissected and prepared the skeleton of a porter who had hanged himself in the stairway of St Andrews University and this was placed in the Anatomy lecture room from 1722.
[7] In 1708, he founded a Natural History Society in Dundee, and several botanical collections were displayed in a ‘Physic Garden’ - later to expand to a ‘Hall of Rarities’.
Despite claiming that he had been forced to join the rebel army, he was sentenced to death, but was given a last-minute reprieve in April 1716 after appeals by Hans Sloane and other members of the Royal Society.
[1] He and his family settled in Boston, Lincolnshire, where he devoted himself to botanical research,[10] publishing several books and delivering papers before the Royal Society.