One of Dr. Hunter’s cherished ideas was to establish in London an anatomical school upon a most extensive scale; for, strange as it must now appear, no regular courses of anatomy were given prior to 1746, and as a consequence surgery and physiology made but slow advancement. As a first step toward the realization of his pet scheme he submitted a memorial to the Earl of Bute, the First Lord of the Treasury, setting forth the great need of such a school, and furnishing with the memorial a suitable plan for establishing a museum in which the necessary instruction might be carried on. The memorial and accompanying plan were submitted to the King, but the proposal eventually fell to the ground. In view of the lack of interest manifested by the Government, Hunter decided to devote his own fortune and the collections which he had gathered up to that time to the establishment of the contemplated school. Accordingly he purchased an extensive piece of property and built upon it a large cabinet or institute in which every facility was provided for anatomical work: laboratories, amphitheatre, etc. In his will a provision was made that this institute with all its equipment should remain in London until thirty years had elapsed from the date of his death, and then it should be transferred to Glasgow. His death occurred on March 30, 1783.
WILLIAM HUNTER
(Copied from Thomas J. Pettigrew’s “Medical Portrait Gallery,” Fisher & Son, London, 1838. The original portrait was painted by Pyne; the engraving was done by J. Thomson.)
The institute which Dr. William Hunter founded was “for the improvement of anatomical knowledge, surgery and physics,” and it may therefore with justice be claimed that Dr. William Hunter was the founder of the anatomical schools of Great Britain upon a rational and extended plan. His nephew, Dr. Baillie, speaks of him as a teacher and scientific worker in the following terms:—
No one ever possessed more enthusiasm for his art, more persevering industry, more acuteness of investigation, more perspicuity of expression, or, indeed, a greater share of natural eloquence. He excelled very much any lecturer whom I have ever heard, in the clearness of his arrangement, the aptness of his illustrations, and the elegance of his diction. He was, perhaps, the best teacher of anatomy that ever lived.
John Hunter, who was born July 14, 1728, was the youngest member of this large family of children, and, as a natural result, his early education was greatly neglected. Then, as a further misfortune, he lost his father by death before he himself had attained his eleventh year. Although he was regularly sent to school he did little else, up to the age of twenty, but waste his time. Then, bored to death by the aimless sort of life he was leading, and learning about this time what a fine reputation his brother William was building up through the work that he was doing in London, he asked him by letter whether he could not give him some regular occupation in his laboratory, stating, at the same time, that if he could not do this, he (John) would immediately enlist as a soldier. William wrote to his brother to come on to London and he would see what he could do for him. Immediately after John’s arrival in the great metropolis he was given anatomical work to do, and, to the astonishment of his brother William, he soon displayed such a remarkable degree of skill as a dissector that there could no longer be any reasonable doubt about his ability to gain eminence in this line of work; and so he was encouraged to give it a full trial. William took special pains to point out to his brother the best technical methods of procedure, and in every possible manner aided him in his efforts to advance. Thus, for example, he gained admission for him to Oxford University, and in due time obtained opportunities for him to witness the operative work of the leading surgeons in several of the London hospitals. With the lapse of time, during the following years John became more and more closely associated with his brother in his different activities,—lecturing in his place whenever he was called away by other matters of importance, making those beautiful anatomical specimens which even to-day are such a striking feature of the Hunter Museum in London, and guiding the students in their work of dissecting. But the field in which he displayed a tireless activity, and in which up to the very end he gained the greatest personal satisfaction from his labors, was that of comparative anatomy and experimental physiology and pathology. It was in this field that he performed the largest amount of original work, and almost always with a view to learning how the different classes of animals were equipped for the performance of one and the same function. About the year 1761 his health began to give way and he was obliged to spend nearly two years in efforts to regain it. With this object in view, he accepted the position of surgeon in the army, and during the period covered by the years 1761 and 1762 visited Belle-Isle, on the west coast of France, and also Portugal. On his return to England with improved health he resumed work on the anatomy of the uterus and especially on the lymphatics of that organ, and made not a few actual discoveries in this his new field. This work was conducted by him with great zest, and as a result he soon began to be the recipient of honors from different scientific societies. He was made a member of the Royal Society of London, and associate of the Society of London Surgeons and also of several German and French scientific societies, and Attending Surgeon of St. George’s Hospital, Surgeon Extraordinary to the King, Surgeon-General of the English Army, etc. In 1783 he experienced his first attack of angina pectoris, and these attacks continued to occur with increasing frequency until the final one, which ended his life on October 16, 1793.
In his biographical notice of John Hunter, Odier quotes Lavater, the famous physiognomist, as saying—after he had gazed for a few moments on Hunter’s portrait: “This man is accustomed to do his own thinking.” Lavater’s judgment, adds Dezeimeris, is amply justified by the facts. “No matter what was the subject upon which he wrote—whether surgery, medicine or physiology—he always added to it a certain measure of originality. In reading his writings one is constantly tempted to question the correctness of the opinion which one may have previously formed with regard to the particular subject under consideration, and it is in this respect—viz., by suggesting thought—that Hunter rendered very great services to his art. And yet, at the same time, it is precisely in his writings that the evidences of neglect in his early education stand out in the strongest relief; a neglect which showed itself most conspicuously in incorrectness, obscurity and slovenliness of style.” (Dezeimeris.) This critic adds that ample proof of the correctness of this judgment may be found in Hunter’s treatise “On the Blood and Inflammation,”—a book which is “full of grand and beautiful ideas that are literally choked in a chaos of conflicting conceptions, unfinished phrases, new words or words used in a sense different from that in which they are commonly employed.” I should add here, however, that the fault of which the biographer last quoted complains appears to be entirely absent in certain of Hunter’s reports of cases, as for instance in that which contains the account of a fractured thigh. At the same time it must be admitted that the physician who presumably prepared this report from notes which he took when Hunter delivered the lectures upon which the report is based, may have so edited the text as completely to eliminate the objectionable features. In our ignorance of the exact truth, it is more agreeable to assume that, in this particular instance, the lecturer revealed his ability to avoid entirely the faults to which the critic refers and to set forth the facts and his accompanying comments with perfect clearness.
Here follows the report as it is printed in the “Hunterian Reminiscences”:—
Granulation is not always confined to a breach of the solids by suppuration; for parts are capable of making new animal matter internally, in cases where it ought to have been healed by the first intention. What gave me the first idea of this was the following case, and the appearance observed on dissection, as exhibited in the preparation of the parts.