“It has likewise been observed of anatomists, that they are all liable to the error of being severe on each other in their disputes. Perhaps from being in the habit of examining objects with care and precision, they may be more disgusted with rash assertions, and false reasoning. From the habit of guarding against being deceived by appearances, and of finding out truth, they may be more than ordinarily provoked by any attempt to impose upon them; and for anything that we know, the passive submission of dead bodies, their common objects, may render them less able to bear contradiction.”
It would have been pleasing if we could have related that William Hunter allowed supreme merit to any one anatomist or physiologist who preceded him. But we find him saying about Harvey: “In merit, Harvey’s rank must be comparatively low indeed. So much had been discovered by others, that little more was left for him to do, than to dress it up into a system; and that, every judge on such matters will allow, required no extraordinary talents. Yet, easy as it was, it made him immortal. But none of his writings show him to have been a man of uncommon abilities.” Dr. Hunter must surely have been aware that this was carping criticism, for on a preceding page he had spoken of Harvey as a first-rate genius for sagacity and application.
The years after his brother’s secession brought Dr. Hunter to the summit of professional success. His obstetric knowledge and skill were known to be so great that he was called in to consultation respecting the Queen in 1762. Two years later he was appointed physician extraordinary to her majesty. His increasing engagements soon left him little time for his dissecting-room and lectures, and he engaged as assistant one of his pupils, William Hewson, and afterwards took him into partnership in his lectures. But this connection was severed, owing to disputes, in 1770, and Hewson commenced lecturing on his own account, and achieved great success, which was cut short, however by his early death from fever in 1774. Cruickshank was his successor with Dr. Hunter, and continued his partner till the death of the latter.
In 1768, the year after his election into the Royal Society, William Hunter was appointed the first Professor of Anatomy to the newly-founded Royal Academy, and he entered upon this field of work with great vigour, applying his anatomical knowledge to painting and sculpture with his usual success. On the death of Dr. Fothergill he was elected President of the Society of Physicians, now the Medical Society of London.
The most remarkable work which William Hunter published was a great series of folio plates of the Human Gravid Uterus, begun in 1751, and published in 1775. In the dedication of this work to the King he acknowledged that in most of the dissections he had been assisted by his brother, “whose accuracy in anatomical researches is so well known,” he says, “that to omit this opportunity of thanking him for that assistance would be in some measure to disregard the future reputation of the work itself.” But this acknowledgment did not content John Hunter, who claimed the original merit of most of the discoveries his brother announced, and communicated a full account to the Royal Society in 1780, five years after his brother’s work was published. At the next meeting of the Society William Hunter replied to his brother’s claims, and John rejoined. The consequence was that the Society published nothing on the subject, but retained the papers of both in manuscript. The anatomical description of William Hunter’s plates was completed by his nephew, Dr. Baillie, and published in 1794.
A still more important work, as regarded costliness, was the formation of the museum, which still remains for the benefit of students as the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow University. Economical from the first, as regarded his personal expenses, William Hunter, after laying aside a sufficient sum to provide for old age or sickness, applied his thoughts to the foundation of an anatomical school in London. During Mr. Grenville’s administration, in 1765, he petitioned him for the grant of a piece of ground on which to build an anatomical theatre, undertaking to spend £7000 on the building, and to endow a permanent professorship of anatomy. It can hardly be believed that such a munificent offer was rejected; but it was the middle of the eighteenth century, and the government pension to Dr. Johnson was probably considered the utmost stretch of public countenance to learning and science. Lord Shelburne, it is true, expressed a wish that Dr. Hunter’s proposal might be carried out by means of a general subscription, and offered himself to contribute a thousand guineas. But William Hunter was not the man to depend for the execution of his projects upon an appeal of this kind, and he consequently purchased a plot of ground in Great Windmill Street, near the Haymarket, where he built a suitable house for his own residence, with a lecture-theatre, dissecting-rooms, and a handsome room for a museum. To this he removed in 1770 from Jermyn Street. He had already a very large collection of human, comparative, and morbid anatomy, which he continued to augment. He purchased all the best collections of morbid and other anatomical specimens that were offered for sale, such as those of Sandys, Falconer (which included Hewson’s), and Blackall. To these were added numerous specimens of rare diseases, presented to him by medical friends and pupils. We discern the light in which he viewed these gifts by the following statement in one of his publications: “I look upon everything of this kind which is given to me as a present to the public, and consider myself as thereby called upon to serve the public with more diligence.” And the museum was always open to the many visitors who were attracted by its fame.
Dr. Hunter’s tastes expanded. He collected fossils, rare books, and coins. Dr. Harwood described his library as including the most magnificent treasure of Greek and Latin books that had been accumulated by any person then living. The anatomist even discovered a bibliographical novelty in comparing two copies of the Aldine edition of Theocritus, which he found to present material differences, though representing the same edition. The collection of coins in this museum was of such value and importance that an illustrated quarto was devoted to the description of a portion of them by William Combe. The preface gives an account of the progress of the collection, which had now cost no less than twenty thousand pounds.
Another important addition was made to the museum in 1781 in the shape of Dr. Fothergill’s collection of shells, corals, and other natural history specimens. Dr. Fothergill’s will directed that William Hunter should have the first refusal of the museum at five hundred pounds less than its value as ascertained by appraisement, and Dr. Hunter eventually made the purchase for twelve hundred pounds.
This noble museum was left by his will, not to his brother John, but to his nephew Dr. Baillie, and in case of his death to Mr. Cruickshank, for thirty years, at the end of which time the collection was to go to the University of Glasgow. Dr. Baillie, however, handed it over to Glasgow before the time specified. Eight thousand pounds was also left to keep up and increase the collection.
Dr. Hunter never retired from practice, although much tormented by gout in his later years. He thought at one time of settling down somewhere in Scotland, when suffering more than usual from ill-health, but having found the title of an estate offered him to be defective, and also having to provide for his constantly increasing museum expenses, he laid aside his intention. He continued most persevering both in his practice and in his lectures, notwithstanding his augmented sufferings, until on the 15th of March 1783 he was almost prostrated. On the 20th, however, he would deliver his lecture introductory to the operations of surgery, notwithstanding the dissuasions of his friends. Towards the end of his lecture he fainted, and had to be carried to bed by two servants. In the following night he had an attack of partial paralysis, from which he did not rally. During his illness he said to his friend, Mr. Combe, “If I had strength enough to hold a pen, I would write how easy and pleasant a thing it is to die.” His brother John was admitted to see and attend him on his deathbed, and no hint of disagreement on these occasions is given. William Hunter died on the 30th March 1783, in his sixty-fifth year, and was buried at St. James’s Church, Piccadilly.