Two years were spent as resident physician in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary; two more in travel and medical study at Paris, Würzburg, Berlin, Vienna, and Dublin.

On returning home, he was speedily appointed lecturer on practice of medicine in the Andersonian Institute and, not long after, physician to the royal infirmary.

In 1909, the institute was absorbed by the western infirmary, and the dermatological teaching was provided for by the foundation of a lectureship at the university, on which Anderson's name was conferred in recognition of his services.

His clear and systematic method of exposition and demonstration, his strict concentration on the subject in hand, and his organising power enabled him to fulfil his functions with admirable efficiency.

In 1900, he succeeded Sir William Tennant Gairdner, in the chair of practice of medicine, and removed from his house in Woodside Terrace to the official residence in the college square.

But he took a high view of the moral responsibilities of a medical adviser, and never suffered his pupils to forget that medicine is a liberal profession as well as a useful art.

His opinion was especially valued, not only in skin diseases, in which he long specialized and his eminence in which was recognised in England and on the Continent, but also in consumption, in the curability as well as in the prevention of which he was a believer, and in certain forms of paralysis.