(F. H. B.)
[1] The date is thus entered in the parish register, see Joseph Adams, Memoirs, Appendix, p. 203. The Hunterian Oration, instituted in 1813 by Dr Matthew Baillie and Sir Everard Home, is delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons on the 14th of February, which Hunter used to give as the anniversary of his birth.
[2] Ottley’s date, 1738, is inaccurate, see S. F. Simmons, Account of ... W. Hunter, p. 7. Hunter’s mother died on the 3rd of November 1751, aged 66.
[3] So in Home’s Life, p. xvi., and Ottley’s, p. 15. Hunter himself (Treatise on the Blood, p. 62) mentions the date 1755.
[4] Ottley incorrectly gives 1753 as the date. In the buttery book for 1755 at St Mary’s Hall his admission is thus noted: “Die Junii 5to 1755 Admissus est Johannes Hunter superioris ordinis Commensalis.” Hunter apparently left Oxford after less than two months’ residence, as the last entry in the buttery book with charges for battels against his name is on July 25, 1755. His name was, however, retained on the books of the Hall till December 10, 1756. The record of Hunter’s matriculation runs: “Ter° Trin. 1755.—Junii 5to Aul. S. Mar. Johannes Hunter 24 Johannis de Kilbride in Com. Clidesdale Scotiae Arm. fil.”
[5] Ottley, Life of J. Hunter, p. 22.
[6] Treatise on the Blood, p. 21.
[7] See Adams, Memoirs, pp. 32, 33. Cf. Hunter’s Treatise on the Blood, p. 8, and Works, ed. Palmer, i. 604.—On the employment of Hunter’s term “increased action” with respect to inflammation, see Sir James Paget, Lect. on Surg. Path., 3rd ed., p. 321 sqq.
[8] According to Hunter, as quoted in Palmer’s edition of his lectures, p. 437, the accident was “after dancing, and after a violent fit of the cramp”; W. Clift, however, who says he probably never danced, believed that he met with the accident “in getting up from the dissecting table after being cramped by long sitting” (see W. Lawrence, Hunt. Orat., 1834, p. 64).