, 9 g EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. FT. ill. 



sician, Dr. William Hunter, who was also a great anatomist. 

 John, being delicate, had been allowed to grow up with very 

 little education, and at twenty years of age he came up to 

 London, a mere ignorant lad, to try and help his brother in his 

 anatomical dissections. Here he soon showed that he had 

 plenty of ability, for he learnt dissecting so rapidly that at 

 the end of a year he was able to teach his brother's pupils, 

 and before long he became one of the leading surgeons at 

 St. George's Hospital, and had a large private practice. 



But though he made a great deal of money by his pro- 

 fession, he spent it all upon his favourite study of anatomy, 

 to which he devoted every spare moment. His great wish 

 was to compare thoroughly the different parts of men and 

 animals, so as to show how the life of each one of them is 

 carried on. For this purpose he dissected and preserved in 

 different ways all the bodies of animals upon which he could 

 lay his hands. He bought up all the wild beasts that died in 

 the Tower, where they were then kept, and any which he 

 could procure from travelling menageries, and he even kept 

 foreign animals himself in a piece of ground at Earl's Court, 

 Brompton, that he might watch their habits and dissect their 

 dead bodies. 



As years went on and his specimens increased, he built a 

 large museum in Leicester Square, and arranged his collec- 

 tion so as to show which parts in different animals serve for 

 the same use. For example, to illustrate the way in which 

 animals digest their food, he placed first the hydras, polyps, 

 and sea-anemones, which are all stomach, being in them- 

 selves nothing but a simple bag surrounded by little feelers, 

 and having a fluid inside which dissolves the food. Then 

 he arranged in order many forms up to the leech, which is 

 a bag with two openings, and has a head and nerves and 

 other parts, besides a stomach. Then came the insects, 



