Professor W. Stirling occupied the Regius chair of Physiology from 1877 to 1886. He drew his scientific inspiration from du Bois Raymond and to a lesser extent from Ludwig. He often related anecdotes about the "strange things one saw and did in Ludwigs laboratory". In best physiological traditions he was quite at home sipping the odd eau sucre on the Boulevards of Paris or beer drinking in Germany.

Professor Stirlings major physiological work was the translation of "Landois' Physiology". At the time his translation was described as 'one of best text books on Physiology extant'. It was the recommended text in Edinburgh and was acknowleged not as a mere translation but that it contained 'many emendations, a large amount of new matter, and an enormous number of new diagrams'.

He was a brilliant lecturer with 'an easy flow and eloquent diction, broken only by some experiment to illustrate a point or by the gearing of some of his gigantic models going wrong'. The more difficult the subject to be described - "and there are a few ticklish points in Physiology" - the more his powers of description and exposition were called into play. He was seem at his best when he tackled "one of those points the student fails to grasp".