HUNTER, JOHN. 



HUNTER, JOHN. 



Ell 



Fsolnsola, and remained in active doty till the end of 1763, when a 

 p*M WM negotiated, and, bii health being completely restored, he 

 returned to London, and commenced practice. 



At flnt Hunter met with little success) in hi* profession; the 

 rnughneM of hit manner*, the consequence in part of his hasty 

 disposition, but more of bis deficient education, prevented blui from 

 rUing in public estimation. Besides, he paid but little attention to 

 his practice, regarding it, as he always did, only as a source from 

 which he might obtain the means of carrying on the scientific inves- 

 tigations to which he was far more attached, and which he had 

 ptndily punned while in the army. To defray tho expenses which 

 that* entailed, he again commenced lecturing on anatomy and surgery ; 

 but notwithstanding the talent and extensive knowledge which his 

 lectures evince, they were little appreciated, and he never had a 

 class of more than twenty pupils, so that he was constantly obliged 

 to borrow money for the purchase of animals and other similar pur- 

 poses, after he had spent on them all that be did not require for the 

 actual necesfaries of life. Every year however added to his repu- 

 tation, and in 1767 he was elected a Fellow of the Hoyal Society, and 

 in 1768 surgeon to St George's Hospital The latter appointment 

 was of the greatest value to him ; it increased his income, both by 

 adding to his surgical reputation, and by enabling him to take pupils, 

 from whom he received large fees. Among his pupils were Jenner, 

 with whom he remained throughout his life on terms of the closest 

 intimacy, and Sir Everard Home, whose sister he afterwards married. 

 From the time of his appointment to St. George's, Hunter's life was 

 occupied with a constant and laborious investigation of every branch 

 of natural history and -comparative auatomy, physiology, and 

 pathology, to all of which he devoted every hour that ha could snatch 

 from the requirements of an increasing surgical practice. In 1773 he 

 Buffered from the first attack of the disease of the heart, of which he 

 ultimately died. He had a severe spaim of the chest, and remained 

 pulseless and cold, though perfectly sensible, for three-quarters of au 

 hour. For many years after however his health seemed pretty good, 

 and he was subject to slighter returns of the disease only wheu much 

 excited or fatigued ; but in 1785 the attacks became more frequent, 

 and he was obliged to leave London. In the following years he 

 became gradually more debilitated, and the slightest fit of anger, to 

 which he was unfortunately prone, wa* sufficient to induce severe 

 spasms. In October 1793 he was engaged in warm disputes with his 

 colleagues at the hospital ; and a remark being made by one of them 

 at a meeting of the governors, which Hunter regarded as an insult, he 

 left the room that he might repress or at least conceal his rage, and 

 had scarcely entered the adjoining apartment, when he fell dead in 

 the arms of Dr. Robertson, one of the physicians of the hospital. 



The extent and importance of John Hunter's works will be best 

 shown by a brief account of his museum and his chief publications. 

 The museum consisted, at the time of his death, of upwards of 10,000 

 preparations, illustrative of human and comparative anatomy, phy- 

 siology and pathology, and natural history. The main object which 

 be had in view in forming it was to illustrate as far as possible the 

 whole subject of life by preparations of the bodies in which its 

 phenomena are presented. The principal and most valuable part of 

 the collection, forming the physiological series, consisted of dissections 

 of the organs of plants and animals, classed according to their different 

 vital functions, and in each claw arranged so as to present every 

 variety of form, beginning from the most simple, and passing upwards 

 to the most complex. They were disposed in two main divisions : the 

 first, illustrative of the functions which minister to the necessities of 

 the individual ; the second, of those which provide for tha continuance 

 of the species. The first division commenced with a few examples 

 of the component ports of organic bodies, as sap, blood, &c. ; and 

 then exhibited the organs of support and motion, presenting a most 

 interesting view of the various materials and apparatus for affording 

 the locomotive power necessary to the various classes of beings. It 

 was succeeded by a series illustrating the function of digestion (which 

 Hunter placed first because he regarded the stomach as tho organ 

 moat peculiarly characteristic of animals), and those of nutrition, 

 circulation, respiration, Ac. These were followed by the organs which 

 place each being in relation with the surrounding world, as the 

 nervous system, the organs of sense, the external coverings, &c. The 

 other chief division of the physiological part of the collection con- 

 tained the sexual organs of plants and animals in their barren and 

 impregnated states; the preparations illustrative of the gradual 

 development of the young, and of the organs temporarily subservient 

 to their existence before and after birth. Parts of the same general 

 division, though arranged separately for the sake of convenience, were 

 the very beautiful collections of nearly 1000 skeletons ; of objects 

 illustrative of natural history, consisting of animals and plants pre- 

 served in spirit or stuffed, of which he left nearly 3000; of upwards 

 of 1200 fossils; and of monsters. 



The pathological part of the museum contained about 2500 speci- 

 mens, arranged in three principal departments : the first illustrating 

 the processes of common diseases and the actions of restoration ; the 

 second the effects of specific diseases ; and the third the effects of 

 various diseases arranged according to their locality in the body. 

 Appended to these was a collection of about 700 calculi and other 

 norganic concretions. 



These few words may give some idea of Hunter's prodigious labour 

 and industry as a collector. But his museum contains sufficient proof 

 that he was no mere collector ; it was formed with a design the most 

 admirable, and arranged in a manner the most philosophic ; and when 

 it is remembered that it was all the work of oue man, labouring under 

 every disadvantage of deficient education, and of limited and often 

 embarrassed pecuniary resources, it affords perhaps better evidence of 

 the strength and originality of Hunter's mind thau any of his written 

 works, where he speaks of the facts which in his museum are made to 

 speak for themselves. Nor should it be omitted that the manual 

 dexterity exhibited in displaying the various objects is fully equal to 

 the intellectual power which determined their arrangement. The 

 museum was sold after Hunter's death to pay the debts which be had 

 incurred in its formation, and to afford the means of support to his 

 family, to whom it was almost all that he had to leave, although for 

 many years before his death he had been earning a very large income. 

 The government gave 15,OOOJ. for it, and presented it to the College 

 of Surgeons, London, by whom it has been greatly augmented. 



For several years before his death Hunter nad been anxious to form 

 a complete catalogue of his collection, and to embody in one large work 

 the results of all his labours and observations. He died when he had 

 completed but a small portion of his design, and left only the materials, 

 with which his successors might have completed a work which would 

 undoubtedly have been the most valuable of its kiud ever published. 

 These materials were contained in nineteen folio manuscript volumes 

 written under Hunter's dictation, and the ten moat valuable of them 

 contained records of his dissections, of all of which he had made 

 copious notes. The formation of the catalogue was intrusted to Sir 

 Everard Home, the brother-in-law and only surviving executor of 

 Hunter ; but from year to year he deferred his task, and after sup- 

 plying only two small portions of hU undertaking, he at length 

 announced that, in accordance with a wish which he had heard Mr. 

 Hunter express, he bad burned the manuscripts which he had taken 

 without leave from the College of Surgeons, and among which were 

 the ten volumes of dissections, and numerous other original papers. 

 Thus nearly the whole labours of Hunter's life seemed lost: a few 

 only of the least important of his writings remained, unless indeed we 

 reckon as his the numerous essays which SirE. Home published as his 

 own in the ' Philosophical Transactions,' and subsequently collected in 

 6 vols. 4to of ' Lectures on Comparative Anatomy.' Many of these 

 give strong evidence of his having used Hunter's writings in their 

 composition ; and the fear lest his plagiarism should be detected is the 

 only probable reason that can be assigned for so disgraceful an act. 

 The papers being thus lost, the formation of the catalogue WM neces- 

 sarily dependent on the arrangement of the preparations themselves, 

 the published works, and the few scattered manuscript* that remained, 

 and such information as those who had associated with Hunter could 

 give. By these means however, and by making numerous fresh dis- 

 sections, and comparing them with the original preparations tin- 

 catalogue was eventually formed in a manner which, although it could 

 not compensate for the loss of the other, conferred the higuest credit 

 on those by whom it was made. 



Hunter's principal published works were the 'Treatise on tho Natural 

 History of the Human Teeth,' 2 vols. 4to, 1771-78 ; Treatise on tho 

 Venereal Disease,' 4to, 1786; 'Observations on Certain Parts of the 

 Animal (Economy,' 4to, 1786 ; and ' Treatise on the Blood, Inflam- 

 mation, and Gun-Shot Wounds,' 2 vols. 8vo, 1794. Of these the two 

 last afford the be.-t proofs of his genius. The ' Animal iKconomy ' 

 consists of a republication of several papers from tho ' Philosophical 

 Transactions,' and of nine others relating to various anatomical and 

 physiological discoveries which Hunter had mode. It is difficult to 

 say which deserves the most admiration, the faultless accuracy of the 

 observations themselves, or the clearness and simplicity of the. deduc- 

 tions drawn from them. His ' Treatise on the lilood,' &c., although 

 he had been collecting materials for it from the time of his entrance 

 into the army, was not written till late in his life, when he was worn 

 down by disease ; and it was rather carelessly completed after his death 

 by his executors, Sir E. Homo and Dr. Baillie. It contains his opinions 

 on disease in general, the results of his long experience, illustrated by 

 numerous physiological investigations. As a collection of observations 

 these volumes are invaluable ; but it is unfortunate that Hunter's 

 reputation has been based upon them rather than upon his museum 

 or his strictly physiological writings, for in the former his mode of 

 reasoning is often obscure and hasty, and his conclusions fur more 

 general thau the evidence warranted. His doctrines were purely vital. 

 The ' materia vita diffusa,' a term which he says was recommended to 

 him by his friends to express the power, or, as he supposed, the subtla 

 matter, which he believed to be contained in the blood and all tho 

 tissues, and to govern all the functions of the living body, was to him 

 the sole agent in the phenomena of life. But his errors were those of 

 ignorance of collateral subjects, rather than of a deficient acquaintance 

 with that which be made the object of bis study ; and when we consider 

 that he was so little educated, that he was not even well acquaint. -,l 

 with his own language, and was ignorant of all others, and that he had 

 only the most superficial knowledge of the physical sciences, whicli 

 every year now shows to have more applications iu the study of tho 

 living body, we can only wonder tho more at the genius which could 

 mil-mount such difficulties. 



