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HUNTER, JOHN (1728-1793)
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See also:HUNTER, See also: In 1754 he became a surgeon's pupil at St See also:George's. Hospital, where he was appointed See also:house-surgeon in 1756.3 During the See also:period of his connexion with Dr Hunter's school he, in addition to other labours, solved the problem of the descent of the testis in the foetus, traced the ramifications of the nasal and olfactory nerves within the See also:nose, experimentally tested the question whether See also:veins could See also:act as absorbents, studied the formation of pus and the nature of the placental circulation, and with his brother earned the See also:chief merit of practically proving the See also:function and importance of the lymphatics in the See also:animal See also:economy. On the 5th of See also:June 1755,4 he
' The date is thus entered in the parish See also:register, see See also:Joseph See also: Hunter's mother died on the 3rd of See also:November 1751, aged 66.
3 So in Home's Life, p. xvi., and Ottley's, p. 15. Hunter himself (See also:Treatise on the See also:Blood, p. 62) mentions the date 1755.
Ottley incorrectly gives 1753 as the date. In the See also:buttery See also:book for 1755 at St See also:Mary's See also: Thus, in 1761, off Belleisle, the conditions of the coagulation of the blood were among the subjects of his inquiries.6 Later, on See also:land, he continued the study of human See also:anatomy, and arranged his notes and memoranda on inflammation; he also ascertained by experiment that digestion does not take See also:place in See also:snakes and lizards during See also:hibernation, and observed that enforced vigorous See also:movement at that See also:season proves fatal to such animals, the See also:waste so occasioned not being compensated, whence he See also:drew the inference that, in the diminution of the See also:power of a part attendant on See also:mortification, resort to stimulants which increase See also:action without giving real strength is inadvisable,' A MS. See also:catalogue by Hunter, probably written soon after his return from Portugal, shows that he had already made a collection of about two See also:hundred specimens of natural and morbid structures. On arriving in See also:England See also:early in 1763, Hunter, having retired from the army on See also:half-pay, took a house in See also:Golden Square, and began the career of a London surgeon. Most of the See also:metropolitan practice at the time was held by P. Pott, C. See also:Hawkins, See also:Samuel See also:Sharp, Joseph See also:Warner and See also:Robert See also:Adair; and Hunter sought to eke out his at first slender income by teaching practical anatomy and operative See also:surgery to a private class. His leisure was devoted to the study of See also:comparative anatomy, to procure subjects for which he obtained the refusal of animals dying in the See also:Tower See also:menagerie and in various travelling zoological collections. In connexion with his rupture of a tendo Achillis,8 in 1767, he performed on See also:dogs several experiments which, with the illustrations in his museum of the See also:reunion of such structures after See also:division, laid the See also:foundation of the See also:modern practice of cutting through tendons (tenotomy) for the See also:relief of distorted and contracted See also:joints. In the same year he was elected F.R.S. His first contribution to the Philosophical Transactions, with the salis." Hunter apparently See also:left Oxford after less than two months' See also:residence, as the last entry in the buttery book with charges for battels against his name is on See also:July 25, 1755. His name was, how-ever, retained on the books of the Hall till See also:December to, Ii56. The See also:record of Hunter's matriculation runs: " Ter° Trin. 1755.--Junii 5to Aul. S. See also:Mar. Johannes Hunter 24 Johannis de Kilbride in Cora. Clidesdale Scotiae Arm. 61." 5 Ottley, Life of J. Hunter, p. 22. 8 Treatise on the Blood, p.21. See Adams, Memoirs, pp. 32, 33. Cf. Hunter's Treatise on the Blood, p. 8, and See also:Works, ed. See also:Palmer, i. 6o4.-On the employment of Hunter's See also:term " increased action " with respect to inflammation, see Sir James See also:Paget, Lect. on Surg. Path., 3rd ed., p. 32I sqq. 8 According to Hunter, as quoted in Palmer's edition of his lectures, p. 437, the See also:accident was " after dancing, and after a violent See also:fit of the See also: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. See also:Lawrence, See also:Hunt. Orat., 1834, p. 64). exception of a supplement to a See also:paper by J. See also:Ellis in the See also:volume for 1766, was an essay on See also:post-mortem digestion of the See also:stomach, written at the See also:request of Sir J. See also:Pringle, and read on the 18th of June 1772, in which he explained that phenomenon as a result of the action of the gastric juice.' On the 9th of December 1768 he was elected a surgeon to St George's Hospital, and, soon after, a member of the See also:Corporation of Surgeons. He now began to take house-pupils. Among these were See also:Edward See also:Jenner, who came to him in 1770, and until the time of Hunter's See also:death corresponded with him on the most intimate and affectionate terms, W. See also:Guy, Dr P. S. Physick of See also:Philadelphia, and Everard Home, his brother-in-law. William See also:Lynn and Sir A. See also:Carlisle, though not inmates of his house, were frequent visitors there. His pupils at St George's included John See also:Abernethy, See also: Bees he had under observation in his conservatory for upwards of twenty years; hornets and wasps were also diligently studied by him. On two occasions his life was in See also:risk from his pets—once in See also:wrestling with a See also:young See also:bull, and again when he fearlessly took back to their See also:dens two leopards which had broken loose among his dogs.
Choosing intuitively the only true method of philosophical See also:discovery, Hunter, ever cautious of confounding fact and See also:hypothesis, besought of nature the truth through the See also:medium of manifold experiments and observations. " He had never read See also: She was a handsome and accomplished woman, and well fulfilled the social duties of her position. The words for See also:Haydn's English canzonets were supplied by her, and were mostly See also:original poems; of these the lines beginning " My mother bids me bind my See also:hair " are, from the beauty of the accompanying See also:music, among the best known. (See R. See also:Nares in Gent. Mag. xci. pt. 1, p. 89, quoted in See also:Nichols's Lit. Anec., 2nd See also:ser., vii. 638.) Hunt. Orat., 1842, p. 15. The See also:condition of this animal during hibernation was a subject of special See also:interest to Hunter, who thus introduces it, even in a See also:letter of condolence to Jenner in 1778 on a disappointment in love: " But let her go, never mind her. I shall employ you with hedgehogs, for I do not know how far I may See also:trust mine."fifteen years he kept a See also:flock of geese simply in See also:order to acquaint himself with the development of birds in eggs, with reference to which he remarked: " It would almost appear that this mode of See also:propagation was intended for investigation." In his toxicological and other researches, in which his experience had led him to believe that the effects of noxious drugs are nearly similar in the See also:brute creation and in See also:man, he had already, in 1780, as he states, " poisoned some thousands of animals." 5 By inserting shot at definite distances in the See also:leg-bones of young pigs, and also by feeding them with See also:madder, by which all fresh osseous deposits are tinged,s Hunter obtained See also:evidence that bones increase in See also:size, not by the intercalation of new amongst old particles, as had been imagined by H.L. See also:Duhamel du Monceau, but by means of additions to their extremities and circumference, excess of calcareous See also:tissue being removed by the absorbents. Some of his most extraordinary experiments were to illustrate the relation of the strength of constitution to See also:sex. He exchanged the spurs of a young See also:cock and a young pullet, and found that on the former the transplanted structure See also:grew to a See also:fair size, on the latter but little; whereas a See also:spur from one leg of a cock transferred to its See also:comb, a part well supplied with blood, grew more than twice as fast as that left on the other leg. Another experiment of his, which required many trials for success, was the engrafting of a human incisor on the comb of a cock.' The uniting of parts of different animals when brought into contact he attributed to the production of adhesive instead of suppurative inflammation, owing to their See also:possession of " the See also:simple living principle." 5 The effects of See also:habit upon structure were illustrated by Hunter's observation that in a See also:sea-See also:gull which he had brought to feed on See also:barley the See also:muscular parietes of the gizzard became greatly thickened.. A similar phenomenon was noticed by him in the See also:case of other carnivorous birds fed on a See also:vegetable See also:diet. It was in 1772 that Hunter, in order effectually to See also:gauge the extent of his own knowledge, and also correctly to See also:express his views, which had been repeatedly misstated or ascribed to others, began his lectures on the theory and practice of surgery, at first delivered free to his pupils and a few See also:friends, but subsequent to 1774 on the usual terms, four guineas. Though Pott, indeed, had perceived that the only true See also:system of surgery is that which most closely accords with the curative efforts of nature, a rational See also:pathology can hardly be said to have had at this time any existence; and it was generally assumed that a knowledge of anatomy alone was a sufficient foundation for the study of surgery. Hunter, unlike his contemporaries, to most of whom his philosophic habit of thought was a See also:mystery, and whose books contained little else than relations of cases and modes of treatment, sought the See also:reason for each phenomenon that came under his See also:notice. The principles of surgery, he maintained, are not less necessary to be understood than the principles of other sciences; unless, indeed, the surgeon should wish to resemble " the See also:Chinese philosopher whose knowledge consisted only in facts." Too much See also:attention, he remarked, cannot be paid to facts; yet a multitude of facts overcrowd the memory without See also:advantage if they do not See also:lead us to establish principles, by an acquaintance with which we learn the causes of diseases. Hunter's course, which latterly comprised eighty-six lectures, delivered on alternate evenings between the See also:hours of seven and eight, lasted from October to See also:April. Some teachers of his time were content to dismiss the subjects of anatomy and surgery in a course of only six See also:weeks' duration. His class was usually small and never exceeded thirty. He was deficient in the gifts of a good extempore See also:speaker, being in this respect a remarkable contrast to his brother William; and he read his lectures, seldom raising his eyes from the See also:manuscript. His manner with his 5 See his evidence at the trial of See also:Captain Donellan, Works, i. 195. 6 On the discovery of the See also:dyeing of bones by madder, see Belchier, Phil. Trans., vol. xxxix., 1736, pp. 287 and 299. Essays and Observations, i. 55, 56. " May we not claim for him," says Sir Wm. See also:Fergusson, with reference to these experiments, " that he anticipated by a hundred years the scientific data on which the See also:present system of human grafting is conducted? " (Hunt. Orat., 1871,
p. 17).
6 Essays and Observations, i. 115; cf. Works, i. 391.
auditory is stated to have been embarrassed and awkward, or, as Adams puts it (Obs. on Morbid Pois., p. 272), " frequently ungraceful," and his language always unadorned; but that his " expressions for the explaining of his new theories rendered his lectures often unintelligible " is scarcely evident in his pupils' notes still extant. His own and others' errors and fallacies were exposed with equal freedom in his teaching. Occasionally he would tell his pupils, " You had better not write down that observation, for very likely I shall think differently next year "; and once in See also:answer to a question he replied, " Never ask me what I have said or what I have written; but, if you will ask me what my present opinions are, I will tell you."
In January 1776 Hunter was appointed surgeon-extraordinary to the See also: It was in the waste of the dental alveoli and of the fangs of shedding teeth that in 1754–1755, as he tells us. he received his first hint of the use of the absorbents. ahernethy (Physiological Lectures, p. 196) relates that Hunter, icing once asked how he could suppose it possible for absorbents o do such things as he attributed to them, replied, " See also:Nay, I know not, unless they possess See also:powers similar to those which a See also:caterpillar exerts when feeding on a See also:leaf." Hunter in 178o read before the Royal Society a paper in which he laid claim to have been the first to make out the nature of the utero-placental (irculation. His brother William, who had five years previously described the same in his Anatomy of the Gravid Uterus, there-upon wrote to the Society attributing to himself this See also:honour. John Hunter in a rejoinder to his brother's letter, dated the 17th of February 1780, reiterated his former statement, viz. that his discovery, on the evening of the See also:day in 1754 that he had made it in a specimen injected by a Dr See also:Mackenzie, had been communicated by him to Dr Hunter. Thus arose an estrangement between the two Hunters, which continued until the time of William's last illness, when his brother obtained permission to visit him. In 1783 Hunter was elected a member of the Royal Society of See also:Medicine and of the Royal See also:Academy of Surgery at See also:Paris, and took part in the formation of " A Society for the Improvement of Medical and Chirurgical Knowledge."1 It appears from a letter by Hunter that in the latter part of 1783, he, with Jenner, had the subject of See also:colour-See also:blindness under See also:consideration. As in that year the See also:lease of his premises in Jermyn Street was to expire, he See also:purchased the twenty-four years' leasehold of two houses, the one on the See also:cast See also:side of See also:Leicester Square, the other in See also:Castle Street with intervening ground. Between the houses he built in 1783-'785, at an expense of above £3000, a museum for his anatomical and other collections which by 1782 had cost him £to,000. The new edifice consisted of a hall 52 ft. long by 28 ft. wide, and lighted from the See also:top, with a See also:gallery all See also:round, and having beneath it a lecture See also:theatre. In April 1785 Hunter's collections were removed into it under the superintendence of Home and William See also:Bell.'- and another assistant, See also:Andre. Among the foreigners of distinction who inspected the museum, which was now shown by Hunter twice a year—in October to medical men, and in May to other visitors—were J. F. See also:Blumenbach, P. See also:Camper and A. Scarpa. In the acquisition of subjects for his varied biological investigations and of specimens for his museum, expense was a See also:matter of small moment with Hunter. Thus he endeavoured, at his own cost, to obtain See also:information respecting the See also:Cetacea by ' The Transactions of the Society contain papers by Hunter on inflammation of veins (1784), intussusception (1789), a case of See also:paralysis of the muscles of deglutition (179o), and a case of poisoning (luring pregnancy (1794), with others written by Home, from materials supplied by him, on Hunter's operation for the cure of popliteal aneurism, on loose cartilages in joints, on certain horny excrescences of the human body, and on the growth of bones. 2 Bell lived with Hunter fourteen years, i.e. from 1775 to 1789, and was employed by him chiefly in making and See also:drawing anatomical preparations for the museum. He died in 1792 at See also:Sumatra, where he was assistant-surgeon to the East See also:India See also:Company.sending out a surgeon to the See also:North in a See also:Greenland whaler. He is said, moreover, to have given, in June 1783, £500 for the body of O'Brien, or Byrne, the Irish See also:giant, whose See also:skeleton, 7 ft. 7 in. high, is so conspicuous an See also:object in the museum of the College of Surgeons of London.' Hunter, who in the spring of 1769–1772 had suffered from See also:gout, in spring 1773 from spasm apparently in the pyloric region, accompanied by failure of the See also:heart's action (Ottley, Life, p. 44), and in 1777 from vertigo with symptoms of angina pectoris, had in 1783 another attack of the last mentioned complaint, to which he was henceforward subject when under anxiety or excitement of mind. In May 1785,' chiefly to oblige William Sharp the engraver, Hunter consented to have his portrait taken by Sir See also:Joshua See also:Reynolds. He proved a See also:bad sitter, and Reynolds made little satisfactory progress, till one day Hunter, while resting his somewhat upraised See also:head on his left See also:hand, See also:fell into a profound See also:reverie—one of those waking dreams, seemingly, which in his lectures he has so well described, when " the body loses the consciousness of its own existence."5 The painter had now before him the man he would See also:fain depict, and, turning his See also:canvas upside down, he sketched out the admirable portrait which, afterwards skilfully restored by H. See also:Farrar, is in the possession of the Royal College of Surgeons. A copy by See also:Jackson, acquired from See also:Lady Bell, is to be seen at the See also:National Portrait Gallery, and St Mary's Hall, Oxford, also possesses a copy. Sharp's See also:engraving of the original, published in 1788, is one of the finest of his productions. The volumes seen in Reynolds' picture are a portion of the unpublished records of anatomical researches left by Hunter at his death, which, with other See also:manuscripts, Sir Everard Home in 1812 removed from his museum, and eventually, in order, it has been supposed, to keep See also:secret the source of many of his papers in the Philosophical Transactions, and of facts mentioned in his lectures, committed to the flames.'
Among the subjects of Hunter's physiological investigation in 1785 was the mode of growth of See also:deer's antlers. As he possessed the See also:privilege of making experiments on the deer in See also:Richmond See also:Park, he in July of that year had a See also:buck there caught and thrown, and tied one of its See also:external See also:carotid See also:arteries. He observed that the antler which obtained its blood See also:supply therefrom, then half-grown, became in consequence See also:cold to the See also:touch. Hunter debated with himself whether it would be See also:shed in due time, or be longer retained than ordinarily. To his surprise he found, on re-examining the antler a See also:week or two later, when the See also:wound around the ligatured artery was healed, that it had regained its warmth, and was still increasing in size. Had, then, his operation been in some way defective? To determine this question, the buck was killed and sent to Leicester See also:Fields. On examination Hunter ascertained that the external carotid had been duly tied, but that certain small branches of the artery above and below the ligature had enlarged, and by their anastomoses had restored the blood supply of the growing part. Thus it was evident that under " the stimulus of See also:necessity," to use a phrase of the experimenter, the smaller arterial channels are
O'Brien, dreading dissection by Hunter, had shortly before his death arranged with several of his countrymen that his See also:corpse should be conveyed by them to the sea, and sunk in deep See also:water; but his undertaker, who had entered into a pecuniary compact with the See also:great anatomist, managed that while the escort was drinking at a certain See also:stage on the See also: There some men he had concealed speedily substituted an See also:equivalent See also:weight of paving-stones for the body, which was at See also:night forwarded tp Hunter, and by him taken in his See also:carriage to Earl's Court, and, to avoid risk of a discovery, immediately after suitable division boiled to obtain the bones. See Tom See also: s A transcript of a portion of Hunter's See also:MSS., made by Clift in 1793 and 1800, was edited by Sir See also:Richard See also:Owen, in two volumes with notes, in 1861, under the See also:title of Essays and Observations in Natural History, Anatomy, See also:Physiology, See also:Psychology and See also:Geology. On the destruction of Hunter's papers see (lift's " Appendix " in vol. ii. p. 497, also W. H. See also:Flower, Introd. Lect., pp. 7-9 (1870). capable of rapid increase in dimensions to perform the offices of the larger.' It happened that, in the ensuing December, there See also:lay in one of the wards of St George's Hospital a patient admitted for popliteal aneurism. The disease must soon prove fatal unless by some means arrested. Should the surgeon, following the usual and commonly fatal method of treatment, cut down upon the See also:tumour, and, after tying the artery above and below it, evacuate its contents? Or should he adopt the See also:procedure, deemed by Pott generally advisable, of amputating the See also:limb above it? It was Hunter's aim in his practice, even if he could not dispense with the necessity, at least to diminish the severity of operations, which he considered were an See also:acknowledgment of the imperfection of the See also:art of healing, and compared to " the acts of the armed See also:savage, who attempts to get that by force which a civilized man would get by stratagem." Since, he argued, the experiment with the buck had shown that See also:collateral vessels are capable of continuing the circulation when passage through a See also:main See also:trunk is arrested, why should he not, in the aneurism case, leaving the absorbents to See also:deal with the contents of the tumour, tie the artery in the See also:sound parts, where it is tied in amputation, and preserve the limb? Acting upon this See also:idea, he ligatured his patient's femoral artery in the See also:lower part of its course in the thigh, in the fibrous sheath enclosing the space since known as " Hunter's See also:canal."2 The leg was found, some hours after the operation, to have acquired a temperature even above the normal.3 At the end of January 1786, that is, in six weeks' time, the patient was well enough to be able to leave the hospital. Thus it was that Hunter inaugurated an operation which has been the means of preserving to hundreds life with integrity of limb—an operation which, as the See also:Italian P. Assalini, who saw it first performed, testifies, " excited the greatest wonder, and awakened the attention of all the surgeons in See also:Europe." Early in 1786 Hunter published his Treatise on the Venereal Disease, which, like some of his previous writings, was printed in his own house. Without the aid of the booksellers, l000 copies of it were sold within a twelvemonth. Although certain views therein expressed with regard to the relationship of syphilis have been proved erroneous, the See also:work is a valuable compendium of observations of cases and modes of treatment (cf. John See also:Hilton, Hunt. Oral. p. 40). Towards the end of the year appeared his Observations on certain parts of the Animal Oeconomy, which, besides the more important of his contributions to the Philosophical Transactions, contains nine papers on various subjects. In 1786 Hunter became See also:deputy surgeon-See also:general to the army; his appointment as surgeon-general and as inspector-general of hospitals followed in 179o. In 1787 he received the Royal Society's See also:Copley See also:medal, and was also elected a member of the See also:American Philosophical Society. On account of the increase in his practice and his impaired See also:health, he now obtained the services of Home as his assistant at St George's Hospital. The death of Pott in December 1788 secured to him the undisputed title of the first surgeon in England. He resigned to Home, in 1792, the delivery of his surgical lectures, in order to devote himself more fully to the completion of his Treatise on the Blood, Inflammation and Gunshot Wounds, which was published by his executors in 1794. In this, his masterpiece, the application of physiology to practice is especially noticeable. In his Treatise on the Blood, p. 288, Hunter observes: " We find it a See also:common principle in the animal See also:machine, that every part increases in some degree according to the action required. Thus we find . . vessels become larger in proportion to the necessity of supply, as for instance, in the gravid uterus; the external carotids in the See also:stag, also, when his horns are growing, are much larger than at any other time. 2 See Sir R. Owen, " John Hunter and See also:Vivisection," Brit. Med. Journ. (February 22, 1879, p. 284). In the See also:fourth of his operations for popliteal aneurism, Hunter for the first time did not include the vein in the ligature. His patient lived for fifty years afterwards. "I'he results on the artery of this operation are to be seen in specimen 3472A (Path. Set.) in the Hunterian Museum. 3 Home, Trans. of See also:Soc. for Imps. of Med. and Chirurg. Knowl. i. 147 (1793). Excess of heat in the injured limb was noticed also in Hunter's second case on the day after the operation; and in his fourth case it reached 40-50 on the first day, and continued during a fortnight. Certain experiments described in the first part, which demonstrate that arterialization of the blood in respiration ' takes place by a See also:process of See also:diffusion of " pure air " or " vital air " (i.e. See also:oxygen) through membrane, were made so early as the summer of 1755. Hunter in 1792 announced to his colleagues at St George's, who, he considered, neglected the proper instruction of the students under their charge, his intention no longer to See also:divide with them the fees which he received for his hospital pupils. Against this innovation, however, the See also:governors of the hospital decided in March 1793. Subsequently, by a See also:committee of their appointing, a See also:code of rules respecting pupils was promulgated, one clause of which, probably directed against an occasional practice of Hunter's, stipulated that no See also:person should be admitted as a student of the hospital without certificates that he had been educated for the medical profession. In the autumn two young Scotchmen, ignorant of the new See also:rule, came up to See also:town and applied to Hunter for admission as his pupils at St George's. Hunter explained to them how he was situated, but promised to advance their request at the next See also:board See also:meeting at the hospital on the 16th of October. On that day, having finished a difficult piece of dissection, he went down to breakfast in excel-See also:lent See also:spirits and in his usual health. After making a professional See also:call, he attended the board meeting. There the interruption of his remarks in behalf of his applicants by a See also:flat See also:contradiction from a colleague brought on one of the old spasmodic heart attacks; he ceased speaking, and retired into an adjoining See also:room only to fall lifeless into the arms of Dr See also:Robertson, one of the hospital physicians. After an See also:hour had been spent in vain attempts to restore animation, his body was conveyed to his house in a See also:sedan See also:chair.' His remains were interred privately on the 22nd of October 1793, in the vaults of St Martin's in the Fields. Thence, on the 28th of March 1859, through the instrumentality of F. T. See also:Buckland, they were removed to See also: He See also:rose at or before six, dissected till nine (his breakfast hour), received patients from half-past nine till twelve, at least during the latter part of his life, and saw his out-See also:door and hospital patients till about four, when he dined, taking, according to Home, as at other meals in the twenty years preceding his death, no See also:wine. After See also:dinner he slept an hour; he then super-intended experiments, read or prepared his lectures, and made, usually by means of an See also:amanuensis, records of the day's dissections. " I never could understand," says W. Clift, " how Mr Hunter obtained See also:rest: when I left him at midnight, it was with a See also:lamp fresh trimmed for further study, and with the usual appointment to meet him again at six in the See also:morning." H. See also:Leigh See also: 5 Hunt. Orat., 1827, p. 5. dozen times over, with corrections and transpositions almost without end." To the kindness of his disposition, his fondness for animals, his aversion to operations, his thoughtful and self-sacrificing attention to his patients, and especially his zeal to help forward struggling practitioners and others in any want abundantly testify. Pecuniary means he valued no further than they enabled him to promote his researches; and to the poor, to non-beneficed clergymen, professional authors and artists his services were rendered without remuneration. His yearly income in 1763–1774 was never £1000; it exceeded that sum in 1778, for several years before his death was £5000, and at the time of that event had reached above £6000. All his earnings not required for domestic expenses were, during the last ten years of his life, devoted to the improvement of his museum; and his See also:property, this excepted, was found on his decease to be barely sufficient to pay his debts. By his contemporaries generally Hunter was respected as a See also:master of the art and See also:science of anatomy, and as a cautious and trustworthy if not an elegant or very dexterous operator. Few, however, perceived the See also:drift of his biological researches. Although it was admitted, even by Jesse Foot,' that the idea after which his unique museum had been formed—namely, that of See also:morphology as the only true basis of a systematic zoological See also:classification —was entirely his own, yet his investigations into the structure of the lower orders of animals were regarded as works of unprofitable curiosity. One surgeon, of no inconsiderable repute, is said to have ventured the remark that Hunter's preparations were " just as valuable as so many See also:pig's pettitoes ";2 and the See also:president of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph See also:Banks, See also:writing in 1796, plainly expressed his disbelief as to the collection being " an object of importance to the general study of natural history, or indeed to any See also:branch of science except to that of medicine." It was " without the solace of sympathy or encouragement of approbation, without collateral assistance," 3 and careless of achieving fame—for he held that " no man ever was a great man who wanted to be one "—that Hunter laboured to perfect his designs, and established the science of comparative anatomy, and principles which, however neglected in his lifetime, became the ground-work of all medical study and teaching. In accordance with the directions given by Hunter in his will, his collection was offered for See also:purchase to the British See also:government. But the See also:prime See also:minister, See also:Pitt, on being asked to consider the matter, exclaimed: " What! buy preparations! Why, I have not See also:money enough to purchase See also:gunpowder." He, however, consented to the bestowal of a portion of the king's See also:bounty for a couple of years on Mrs Hunter and her two surviving children. In 1796 See also:Lord See also:Auckland undertook to urge upon the government the advisability of acquiring the collection, and on the 13th of June 1799, See also:parliament voted £15,000 for this purpose. Its custodianship, after refusal by the College of Physicians, was unanimously accepted by the Corporation of Surgeons on the terms proposed. These were in brief—that the collection be open four hours in the forenoon, two days every week, for the inspection and consultation of the See also:fellows of the College of Physicians, the members of the Company of Surgeons and persons properly introduced by them, a catalogue of the preparations and an See also:official to explain it being at those times always at hand; that a course of not less than twenty-four lectures 4 on comparative anatomy and other subjects illustrated by the collection be given every year by some member of the Company; and that the preparations be kept in good preservation at the expense of the Corporation, and be subject to the superintendence of a board of sixteen trustees.' The fulfilment of these conditions was rendered possible by the See also:receipt of fees for See also:examinations and diplomas, under the See also:charter by which, in 1800, the Corporation was constituted the Royal College of Surgeons. In 1806 the collection was placed in temporary quarters in See also:Lincoln's See also:Inn Fields, and the sum of £15,000 was voted by parliament for the erection of a proper and commodious See also:building for its preservation and See also:extension. This was followed by a See also: In what does life consist? is a question which in his writings he frequently considers, and which seems to have been ever present ' See p. 266 of his malicious so-called Life of John Hunter (1794). 2 Cf. J. H. See also:Green, Hunt. Oral., 1840, p. 27. ' Abernethy, Physiological Lectures, p. 11 (1817). 6 Instituted in 1806. 6 Increased to seventeen in 1856.in his mind. Life, he taught, was a principle See also:independent of structure,6 most tenaciously held by the least highly organized beings, but capable of readier destruction as a whole, as, e.g., by deprivation of heat or by See also:pain, in young than in old animals. In life he beheld an agency working under the See also:control of law, and exercising its functions in various modes and degrees. He perceived it, as Abernethy observes, to be " a great chemist," a power capable of manufacturing a variety of substances into one See also:kind of generally distributed nutriment, and of furnishing from this a still greater variety of dissimilar substances. Like See also:Harvey, who terms it the anima vegetiva, he regarded it as a principle of self-preservation, which keeps the body from See also:dissolution. Life is shown, said he, in renovation and action; but, although facilitated in its working by See also:mechanical causes, it can exist without action, as in an See also:egg new-laid or undergoing See also:incubation. It is not simply a regulator of temperature; it is a principle which resists cold, conferring on the structures which it endows the capacity of passing some degrees below the freezing-point of See also:ordinary inanimate matter without suffering congelation. Hunter found, in short, that there exists in animals a latent heat of life, set free in the process of death (see Treatise on the Blood, p. 8o). Thus he observed that See also:sap if removed from trees froze at 32° F., but within them might be fluid even at 15°; that a living See also:snail placed in a freezing mixture acquired first a temperature of 28°, and afterwards of 32° ere it froze; and that, whereas a dead egg congealed immediately at 32°, a living egg did so only when its temperature had risen to that point after a previous fall to 29t''. The idea that the fluid and semifluid as well as the solid constituents of the body contain the vital principle diffused through them he formed in 1755–1756, when, in making drawings illustrative of the . changes that take place in the incubated egg, he noted specially that neither the white nor the yolk undergoes putrefaction. The blood he, with Harvey, considered to possess a vitality of its own, more or less independent of that of the animal in which it circulates. Life, he held, is preserved by the See also:compound of the living body and the source of its solid constituents, the living blood. It is to the susceptibility of the latter to be converted into living organized tissue that the See also:union of severed structures by the first intention is due. He even inclined to the belief that the chyle has life, and he considered that See also:food becomes " animalized " in digestion. Coagulation of the blood he compared to the contraction of muscles, and believed to be an operation of life distinct from chemical coagulation, adducing in support of his opinion the fact that, in animals killed by See also:lightning, by violent blows on the stomach, or by the exhaustion of See also:hunting, it does not take place. " Breathing," said Hunter, " seems to render life to the blood, and the blood continues it in every part of the body." 7 Life, he held, could be regarded as a See also:fire, or something similar, and might for distinction's See also:sake be called " animal fire." Of this the process of respiration might afford a See also:constant supply, the fixed life supplied to the body in the food being set free and rendered active in the lungs, whilst the air carried off that principle which encloses and retains the animal fire., The living principle, said Hunter, is coeval with the existence of animal or vegetable matter itself, and may long exist without sensation. The principle upon which depends the power of sensation regulates all our external actions, as the principle of life does our See also:internal, and the two act mutually on each other in consequence of changes produced in the See also:brain. Something (the " materia vitae diffusa ") similar to the components of the brain (the " materia vitae coacervata ") may be supposed to be diffused through the body and even contained in the blood; between these a communication is kept up by the nerves (the " chordae internunciae ").9 Neither a material nor a chemical theory of life, however, formed a part of Hunter's creed. " See also:Mere See also:composition of matter," he remarked, " does not give life; for the dead body has all the composition it ever had; life is a property we do not understand ; we can only see the necessary leading steps towards it." 1° As from life only, said he in one of his lectures, we can gain an idea of death, so from death only we gain an idea of life. Life, being an agency leading to, but not consisting of, any modification of matter, " either is something superadded to matter, or else consists in a See also:peculiar arrangement of certain See also:fine particles of matter, which being thus disposed acquire the properties of life." As a See also:bar of See also:iron may gain magnetic virtue by being placed for a time in a special position, so perhaps the particles of matter arranged and long continued in a certain posture eventually gain the power of life. " I enquired of Mr Hunter," writes one of his pupils," " if this did not make for the Exploded See also:Doctrine of Equivocal 6 How clearly he held this view is seen in his remark (Treatise oil the Blood, p. 28, cf. p. 46) that, as the coagulating See also:lymph of the blood is probably common to all animals, whereas the red corpuscles are not, we must suppose the lymph to be the essential part of that fluid. Hunter was the first to discover that the blood of the embryos of red-blooded animals is at first colourless, resembling that of invertebrates. (See Owen, See also:Preface to vol. iv. of Works, p. xiii.) 7 Treatise on the Blood, p. 63. 8 Essays and Observations, i. 113. 9 Treatise on the Blood, p. 89. 16 lb. p. 90. " P. P. See also:Staple, with the See also:loan of whose volume of MS. notes of Hunter's " Chirurgical Lectures," dated, on the last See also:page, See also:Sept. loth, 1787, the writer was favoured by Sir W. H. Broadbent. See also:Generation: he told me perhaps it did, and that as to Equivocal Generation all we c5 have was negative Proofs of its not taking Place. He did not deny that Equivocal Generation happened; there were neither See also:positive proofs for nor against its taking place." To exemplify the See also:differences between organic and inorganic growth, Hunter made and employed in his lectures a collection of crystallized specimens of minerals, or, as he termed them, " natural or native fossils." Of fossils, designated by him " extraneous fossils," because extraneous respecting the rocks in which they occur, he recognized the true nature, and he arranged them according to a system agreeing with that adopted for See also:recent organisms. The study of fossils enabled him to apply his knowledge of the relations of the phenomena of life to conditions, as exhibited in times present, to the elucidation of the history of the See also:earth in See also:geological epochs. He observed the non-occurrence of fossils in See also:granite, but with his customary scientific caution and insight could perceive no reason for supposing it to be the original matter of the globe, See also:prior to vegetable or animal, or that its formation was different from that of other rocks. In water he recognized the chief See also:agent in producing terrestrial changes (cf. Treatise on the Blood, p. 15, See also:note) ; but the popular notion that the Noachian See also:deluge might account for the marine organisms discovered on land he pointed out was untenable. From the diversity of the situations in which many fossils and allied living structures are found, he was led to infer that at various periods not only repeated oscillations of the level of the land, lasting thousands of centuries, but also great See also:climatic See also:variations, perhaps due to a change in the See also:ecliptic, had taken place in geological times. Hunter considered that very few fossils of those that resemble recent forms are identical with them. He conceived that the latter might be varieties, but that if they are really different species, then " we must suppose that a new creation must have taken place." It would appear, therefore, that the origin of species in variation had not struck him as possible. That he believed varieties to have resulted from the See also:influence of changes in the conditions of life in times past is shown by a some-what obscure passage in his " Introduction to Natural History " (Essays and Observations, i. 4), in which he remarks, " But, I think, we have reason to suppose that there was a period of time in which every species of natural production was the same, there being then no variety in any species," and adds that " See also:civilization has made varieties in many species, which are the domesticated." Modern discoseries and doctrines as to the See also:succession of life in time are again foreshadowed by him in the observation in his introduction to the description of drawings relative in incubation (quoted in Pref. to See also:Cat. of Phys. Ser. i. p. iv., 1833) that: " If we were capable of following the progress of increase of the number of the parts of the most perfect animal, as they first formed in succession, from the very first, to its state of full perfection, we should probably be able to compare it with some one of the incomplete animals themselves, of every order of animals in the creation, being at no stage different from some of those inferior orders; or, in other words, if we were to take a See also:series of animals from the more imperfect to the perfect, we should probably find an imperfect animal corresponding with some stage of the most perfect." In pathological phenomena Hunter discerned the results of the perturbation of those See also:laws of life by which the healthy organism subsists. With him pathology was a science of vital See also:dynamics. He afforded principles bearing not on single complaints only, but on the effects of injury and disease in general. To See also:attempt to set forth what in Hunter's teaching was new to pathology and systematic surgery, or was rendered so by his mode of treatment, would be well-nigh to present an See also:epitome of all that he wrote on those subjects. " When we make a discovery in pathology," says Adams, writing in 1818, " we only learn what we have overlooked in his writings or forgotten in his lectures." Surgery, which only in 1745 had formally ceased to he associated with " the art and mystery of barbers," he raised to the See also:rank of a scientific profession. His doctrines were, necessarily, not those of his See also:age: while lesser minds around him were still dim with the mists of the See also:ignorance and dogmatism of times past, his lofty See also:intellect was illumined by the See also:dawn of a distant day. AUTnoRIT1ES.—See„besides the above quoted publications, An See also:Appeal to the present Parliament ... on the subject of the See also:late J. Hunter's Museum (1795); Sit C. Bell, A Lecture ... being a Commentary on Mr J. Hunter's preparations of the Diseases of the Urethra (1830); The President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Address to the Committee for the Erection of a Statue of Hunter (Lond., March 29, 1859) ; Sir R. Owen, " See also:Sketch of Hunter's Scientific See also:Character and Works," in Tom Taylor's Leicester Square (1874), also in Hunter's Works, ed. by Palmer, vol. iv. (18J7), and in Essays and Observations; the invaluable catalogues of the Hunterian Collection issued by the Royal College of Surgeons; and numerous Hunterian Orations. In the See also:Journal of a Voyage to New See also:South See also:Wales, by John White, is a paper containing directions for preserving animals, printed separately in 1809, besides six zoological descriptions by Hunter; and in the Natural History o See also:Aleppo, by A. See also:Russell, are remarks of Hunter's on the anatomy of~the See also:jerboa and the See also:camel's stomach. Notes of his lectures on surgery, edited by J. W. K. See also:Parkinson, appeared in 1833 under the title of Hunterian Remi- niscences. Hunter's Observations and Reflections on Geology, intended to serve as an introduction to the catalogue of his collection of extraneous fossils, was published in 1859, and his Memoranda on Vegetation in 1860. (F. H. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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