Carl Hamilton Browning was born in Glasgow on 21 May 1881. His grandfather, the Rev. Archibald Browning of Tillicoultry was, as Professor D. F. Cappell tells me, a vigorous Chartist and social reformer as well as a noted preacher, and both his father, Hugh Hamilton Browning, a graduate in Arts and Divinity at Edinburgh University, and his mother were gifted musicians. He himself was educated at Glasgow Academy, where he was Dux in 1896-97 and triple medallist in classics, English and mathematics. He took his medical training in Glasgow University, and, as he said himself, was even before he was qualified so attracted by Robert Muir and A. R. Ferguson that he asked Muir for a ‘subject’ to work on. Muir suggested that he look into the development of granular leucocytes in the human foetus. He did it, and by the time (1905) that the paper was printed he had in 1903 graduated M.B., Ch.B. with Honours; he then applied for the Coats Scholarship; no other candidate appeared, so he enjoyed the scholarship for some months, working with Muir on haemolytic sera. His time was not heavily loaded, and gave him opportunities for seeing the run of the Department and for a postgraduate course in medical bacteriology. Apart from this his only duty was to wash red blood cell suspensions in a hand-driven centrifuge until a small electrical one was built. He also tutored several students—an activity he strongly recommended as educational.
Effect of cytosol viscosity on the flow behavior of red blood cell suspensions in microvessels