As a child, Robert Broom suffered from respiratory illnesses, and spent a year at the seashore to recuperate. It was there that a marine officer sparked his interest in marine biology. His father, a fabric designer, was an amateur botanist, and he encouraged the boy's interest in the natural sciences. Like his father, Broom had a talent for drawing. Broom attended Hutcheson's Grammar School, and entered the University of Glasgow in 1883. He received his medical degree in 1889 and went to Australia in 1892. There he married Mary Baillie who had followed him from Scotland, and in 1897, they made South Africa their permanent home. For a good part of his life, Broom practiced medicine in rural communities. In addition, he worked extensively in paleontology, a branch of geology that deals with prehistoric life.

Broom's investigations into the comparative anatomy and embryology of mammals and reptiles led him to believe that...