HUNTERIAN LECTURES^ 



1843. 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 



CLASSIFICATION OF ANIMALS. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen, 

 There are doubtless some now present who have not before attended 

 the Hunterian lectures on Comparative Anatomy, which are appointed 

 to be annually delivered in this theatre. I may therefore commence 

 by stating the prescribed extent and subject of these lectures. 



They are defined in the second clause of the trust-deed, which ex- 

 presses the conditions on which the Hunterian Collection, purchased 

 by Parliament, was transferred to the Royal College of Surgeons, as 

 follows : viz. " That one course of lectures, not less than twenty-four 

 in number, on Comparative Anatomy, illustrated by the Preparations, 

 shall be given each year by some member of the College." 



When I was honoured by the Council in 1837 with this arduous and 

 responsible office, it seemed to me that the first obligation upon the 

 professor was, to combine with the information to be imparted on the 

 science of Comparative Anatomy an adequate demonstration of the 

 nature and extent of the Hunterian Physiological Collection, and thus 

 to offer a due tribute to the scientific labours and discoveries of its 

 Founder. 



The system adopted by Hunter for the arrangement of his pre- 

 parations of Comparative Anatomy was therefore made that of the 

 lectures which were to be illustrated by them ; and this plan was closely 

 adhered to until the whole of the physiological department of the 

 Collection had been successively brought under your notice, and its 

 demonstration completed, in the course of lectures which I had the 

 honour to deliver last year. 



It is, I believe, generally known that Hunter has arranged his beau- 

 tifully prepared specimens of animal and vegetable structures according 

 to the organs ; commencing with the simplest form, and proceeding 



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