HUNTERIAN ORATION. 167 



was founded in the Boyal College of Surgeons, by 

 Dr. Matthew Baillie and Sir Everard Home ; and for 

 forty years a festival was held on each returning birth- 

 day of the great experimental surgeon, 'fhe oration 

 and celebration are now repeated biennially; and the 

 occasion does not decrease in interest as time passes. 

 The high character of the orations, and the intellectual 

 status of the guests, indicate the esteem in which the 

 memory of a man of transcendent ability is held. 

 Although the remains of John Hunter rest in West- 

 minster Abbey, the example of patient labor the great 

 physiologist set, and the value of his discoveries, exert 

 such an influence upon mankind to-day, that it is 

 easy to see that the spirit of the man still lives. 



If it be legitimate in this country to reverence 

 the name of Shakespeare as profoundly as it is done 

 in England, why may we not bestow praise upon the 

 eminent mental qualities of John Hunter? Indeed, 

 the right has been acknowledged. In 1860, when a 

 call was made in London for contributions to aid in 

 the erection of a statue to the memory of " the father 

 of modern surgery," a respectable sum of money was 

 forwarded by physicians in the United States. All 

 English speaking people, and the scientists of every 

 country, will ever hold in lively appreciation the name 

 and worthy fame of John Hunter. 



The interest which is now taken in biological 

 studies has brought the labors of Hunter into renewed 

 prominence. The advocates of organic evolution have 

 appropriated as their own such facts developed by 

 Hunter as could be warped into the support of their 

 theory ; but nothing which Hunter wrote can be tor- 

 tured into the support of biological evolution. While 

 making a collection of fossils, Hunter became ac- 



