525 



HUNTER, REV. JOSEPH. 



HUNTINGDON, COUNTESS OP. 



626 



Hunter is, by the common consent of all his successors, the greatest 

 man that ever practised surgery. Considered merely as a surgeon, 

 and with reference only to the direct improvements which he effected 

 in its practice, he stands inferior to few : his improvement of the 

 operation for aneurism was undoubtedly the most brilliant discovery 

 in surgery of his century. He first described the important disease of 

 inflammation of the veins ; he first published lucid views on the 

 venereal disease ; nnd by his work on inflammation improved the 

 modes of practice applicable to nine-tenths of the diseases which fall 

 within the province of the surgeon. But it was less by individual 

 discoveries than by the general tone of scientific investigation which 

 he gave to surgical practice that he improved it. Before his time 

 surgery bad been little more than a mechanical art, somewhat dignified 

 by the material on which it was employed. Hunter first made it a 

 science, and by pointing out its peculiar excellence as affording visible 

 examples of the effects and progress of disease, induced men of far 

 higher attainments than those who had before practised it to make it 

 their study. 



As an anatomist and physiologist, his museum alone is sufficient to 

 show that he has bad no superior; and while his published works 

 confirm this opinion, and exhibit what he knew, they add to the regret 

 that so much more should have been lost. Every year, as his museum 

 is more closely studied, proven that Hunter had been well aware of 

 facts for the discovery of which other observers have since his death 

 received the honour. His remarks on fossil bones, for example, evince 

 hi knowledge of the principle carried out by Cuvier, by which their 

 investigation might be made the clue to the history of a former world. 

 His notices, though short, of monstrosities prove that he knew the 

 fact that they are, as it were, representations of the natural form of 

 animals lower iu the scale of creation, and possess the form natural 

 to themselves at an earlier period of development, a law since more 

 fully demonstrated by Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Meckel, Von Baer, &c. ; 

 and it is now certain, from the drawings which he had made from his 

 preparations, that he was well acquainted with nearly the wholo of 

 that most interesting department of physiology which relates to the 

 development of the embryo. The number of individual fact", for the 

 discovery of which he has lot hi* due honour by the destruction of 

 his manuscript*, cannot now be calculated. 



As a natural historian, Hunter's merits were of no ordinary character, 

 as is sufficiently shown by his descriptions of various auiumlsfrom Now 

 South Wales, published in Mr. White's ' Voyage ' to that country, and 

 by his papers on the wolf, &c. Ho seems however to have regarded 

 the study of zoology as very inferior to that of physiology, and it is 

 probable that tbo large collection of animals which he left preserved 

 in spirit was only intended as a store of subjects for future dissection. 



The whole of John Hunter's works have been edited in 4 vols. 8vo 

 by Mr. James F. Palmer, who has added to those published by himself 

 numeroui papers from different periodical*, his surgical lectures, from 

 notes taken by gome of his pupils, and his Croonian Lectures. Bio- 

 graphies of Hunter have been written by Sir Everard Home, Mr. Jesse 

 Foote, and Dr. Adams, A life by Mr. Drewry Ottley is prefixed to 

 Mr. Palmer's edition of his works. 



HUNTER, UEV. JOSEPH, ton of Mr. Michael Hunter, was 

 born at Sheffield, and educated at York for the ministry among the 

 English Presbyterian Dissenter*, and was for twenty-four years their 

 minister at Bath, where he collected materials for an interesting work, 

 ' The connection of Bath with the Literature and Science of England.' 

 He also published, besides other works, his ' History of Hallainshire,' in 

 one vol. foL, the ' Hallamshire Glossary,' ' English Monastic Libraries,' 

 and his great work on the ' History and Topography of the Deanery 

 of Doncaater, South Yorkshire.' He likewise edited several works 

 for the Record Commission. In 1833 he accepted the post of sub- 

 commissioner of the Public Records, and from that time he has been 

 industriously occupied in that department. His indefatigable zeal has 

 latterly been directed to the arranging of the records of her Majesty's 

 Remembrancer of the Exchequer in Carlton Ride, thus rendering 

 accessible a large amount of Record Evidence previously useless. 

 Since the commencement of his official career he has found time even 

 amid his laborious toils to produce ' Illustrations of the Life, Studies, 

 and Writings of Shakespeare,' a ' Disquisition on the Scene, Origin, 

 and Date of the Tempest," as also various other works on Archaeology 

 and Ecclesiastical history. He has been a liberal contributor to the 

 ' Archseologia,' the 'Retrospective Review,' and the Archaeological 

 Institute. He is also well known as a staunch upholder of Lady 

 Hewley'g Foundations, and of the claims upon them by the Presby- 

 terian ministry of England, and has rendered America his debtor by 

 pointing out the precise localities in the mother country from which 

 the eailieat families settled in New England took their origin. 



HCNTICK, WILLIAM, wa bom in 1718 ixt Long Calderwood, 

 near Glasgow. He was entered at the University of Glasgow in 1732, 

 and remained there for five year* studying for the church ; but while 

 hesitating whether he should pursue that profession he met with 

 Cullen, who was at that time practising as a surgeon and apothecary 

 at Hnmilton. An intimate friendship was soon formed between them, 

 the result of which was that Hunter determined to study medicine, 

 and to practise in partnership with Cullen. Part of the agreement into 

 which they mutually entered wu, that each of them should alternately 

 pan a winter at some large medical school, while the other remained 



in charge of the business in the country. The success of Cullen, and 

 his exaltation to the highest celebrity in Scotland, has been already 

 mentioned [CULLEN, WILLIAM], and Hunter was destined to attain a 

 reputation scarcely inferior in England. In 1741 he visited London, 

 where he resided with Smellie, the celebrated accoucheur, and studied 

 anatomy under Dr. Nicholls, and surgery at St. George's Hospital. 

 Dr. Douglas, to whom he brought a letter of introduction, engaged 

 him soon after his arrival to assist him in completing an anatomical 

 work which he was publishing, and to educate his son. He resided 

 in the family till 1744, when Mr. Sharpe having resigned a lectureship 

 on surgery to a Society of Naval Surgeons, Hunter was elected to fill 

 his place, and at once met with the most marked success. In 1746 

 he commenced lecturing on anatomy, and in 1747 became a member 

 of tho Corporation of Surgeons. But he had always preferred the 

 practice of midwifery to that of surgery ; aud several circumstances 

 coinciding to give a favourable prospect of success, he determined in 

 1749 to confine himself exclusively to the former subject. In 1750 he 

 took a Doctor's degree at Glasgow; in 1764 was appointed physician 

 extraor.linary to the queen ; in 1767 he became a Fellow of the Royal 

 Society. His time was now so completely occupied in the practice 

 of his profession, that he was obliged to give up a part of his lectures, 

 and his brother John, Hewson, and Cruickshank, were successively 

 his partners. He amassed a large fortune, and died in 1783, with a 

 reputation inferior only to that of his brother, of whom it was not 

 his least honour that he had been the preceptor aud first patron. 

 They had been unhappily estranged for many years before Dr. 

 Hunter's death, iu consequence of a dispute relative to their mutual 

 claims to the discovery of the structure of the placenta : which was 

 most in fault is still unknown ; but their hostility, which was at first 

 very warm, did not cease till William was on his death-bed. Even 

 then the reconciliation was only partial, for he left nearly the whole of 

 his large property to those who were distantly connected with him, 

 although hia brother was at the time in embarrassed circumstances. 



William Hunter's principal work was the ' Anatomy of the Gravid 

 Uterus,' on which he was engaged for nearly thirty years. It oontaius 

 thirty-lour folio plates, most accurately aud beautifully engraved from 

 dissections by himself and his brother, illustrative of the most 

 important subjects in obstetrics. A work descriptive of these plates, 

 and containing several other points of great interest collated from 

 the original manuscript, was published after Dr. Hunter's death by 

 his nephew Dr. Baillie. He was also the author of numerous essays 

 in the 'Philosophical Transactions,' and the 'Medical Observations,' 

 of which the most important are those relating to his discoveries of 

 the varicose aneurism, of the origin and use of the lymphatics, the 

 retroversion of the uterus, and the membraua deoidua reflexa. 

 William Hunter had long wished to found an anatomical school iu 

 London, and in 1765 he offered to expend 7000Z. on a building fit for 

 that purpose, to endow a professorship, and to give his museum and 

 library, if the government would grant him a piece of ground to build 

 upon. This munificent offer was refused, and he therefore bought 

 some ground in Windmill Street, where he built a private house, with 

 a museum and dissecting-rooms adjacent to it. He at the same time 

 added to his museum, which already contained a large number of 

 very valuable anatomical and pathological preparations, a choice 

 library of Greek and Latin works, a cabinet of the rarest ancient 

 medals, which cost him 20,0002., and numerous objects of natural 

 history. He bequeathed all these to Dr. Baillie, who was to hold 

 them for thirty years, and then to transmit them to the University of 

 Glasgow, to which he had also left 8000J., for their maintenance aud 

 increase. 



If William Hunter was inferior in intellect to hig brother John, he 

 was free from many of his faults ; he was a good scholar, a clear aud 

 elegant writer, and an accomplished gentleman. He was the most 

 scientific man that had ever practised as an accoucheur ; and mid- 

 wifery is as much indebted to him as surgery is to his brother. Each 

 not only improved the practice of his profession, but conferred a far 

 greater benefit by introducing the scientific principles of physiology 

 into what bad, before their time, been, little more than mechanical 

 arts. 



HUNTINGDON, SELINA, COUNTESS OF, a lady distinguished 

 in the religious history of the century to which she belonged, was 

 born in 1707, and was one of the three daughters aud co-heirs of 

 Washington Shirley, earl Ferrers, the other two being Lady Kilmorey 

 and Lady Elizabeth Nightingale, the lady for whom there is the well- 

 known monument in Westminster Abbey. Selina, the second daughter, 

 married, in 1728, Theophilus Hastings, carl of Huntingdon, a noble- 

 man of retired habits, with whom she appears to have had a very 

 happy life till his sudden death, on the 13th of October 1746, of a 

 fit of apoplexy. She had many children, four of whom died in youth 

 or early manhood. 



It was probably these domestic afflictions which disposed this lady 

 to take the course so opposite to that which is generally pursued by 

 the noble and the great. She became deeply religious. It was at the 

 time when the preachers and founders of Methodism, Wesley aud 

 Whitefield, were rousing in the country, by their exciting ministry, a 

 spirit of more intense devotion than was generally prevalent, and 

 leading men to look more to what are called the distinguishing truths 

 of the Gospel than to its moral teachings, to which the clergy had for 



