364 



HUNTER. 



Ihmttr, 

 William. 



ous introduction to public notice. His eminent talents 

 were in the first instance exercised in a field in which 

 they were sure to be recognised. He therefore proceed- 

 ed, not merely with confidence, but with enthusiastic 

 zeal, in the pursuits in which he so much delighted. The 

 profits of the fir.st winter put him in possession of a lar- 

 ger sum than he hail ever before possessed, 70 guineas; 

 but as his generosity led him to supply the wants of 

 different friends, his fund was completely exhausted 

 before next winter, and he was even obliged to delay 

 his lectures for a fortnight for want of money to pay 

 for advertising. This incident, together with the ulti- 

 mate inutility of some of his generous acts to those who 

 were the objects of them, impressed on him a lesson of 

 prudence, which preserved him ever after from similar 

 inconveniences, and laid in part the foundation of that 

 fortune which he expended in a public-spirited manner. 



In 1747, he became a member of the college of sur- 

 geons ; and in the spring of the following year he made 

 n tour with the son of Dr Douglas through Holland to 

 Paris. The bea-utiftil anatomical preparations of Albi- 

 nus which he saw in Holland inspired him with admi- 

 ration, and an ambition to emulate their excellence. He 

 returned to resume his lectures ; and in the mean time 

 he practised both surgery and midwifery. But he soon 

 gave up the former of these branches, and attached him- 

 self to midwifery, in which his late preceptor Dr Dou- 

 glas had been eminent. He was elected, in 1748, 

 surgeon accoucheur to the Middlesex hospital, and the 

 following year to the British lying-in hospital. These 

 appointments, together with his agreeable person and 

 address, in which he furnished a favourable contrast to 

 Dr Smellie, who at that time enjoyed a high reputation, 

 promoted greatly the extension of his practice, which 

 was rendered still greater by the death of Sir Richard 

 Manningham, and the retirement of Dr Sandys. 



In 1750, he obtained the degree of M. D. from the 

 university of Glasgow. At this time, he quitted the 

 family of Mrs Douglas, and took a house for himself in 

 Jermyn Street. In the summer of 1751, he paid a visit 

 to his mother and other relations in Scotland, where he 

 had an opportunity of exchanging congratulations with 

 Dr Cullen, who was now, like himself, rising into emi- 

 nence, and was established as a physician and professor 

 in Glasgow. 



In 1755, he was made physician to the British lying- 

 in hospital on the resignation of Dr Layard, was ad- 

 mitted licentiate of the college of physicians, and soon 

 after became a member of the medical society of Lon- 

 don. He published, in the Observations and Inquiries 

 of this body, a history of an aneurism of the aorta. 



Dr Hunter turned his extensive practice to very 

 eminent account, by adding to the pathological and 

 medical knowledge of the age. He had the merit of 

 first explaining the nature of the disease called retrover- 

 sio uteri, and distinguishing it from other diseases with 

 which it had been confounded ; he explained the tex- 

 ture of the cellular membrane, and the pathology of 

 anasarca and emphysema; he also threw much light 

 on the subjects of ovarian dropsy, diseases of the heart 

 and stomach, and hernia. For his papers on these and 

 many other subjects, we refer to his Medical Commen- 

 taries. 



In 1762, he was consulted during the pregnancy of 

 the queen, and in two years after was appointed physi- 

 cian-extraordinary to her Majesty. In 1767, he became 

 a fellow of the Royal Society, and enriched their Trans- 

 actions with his learned observations on the bones of 

 animals found on the banks of the river Ohio, and on 

 the rock of Gibraltar. 



He, after this, became engaged in Some personal 

 disputes with the present Dr Monro, senior, of Edin- 

 burgh, on their contending claims to priority in anato- 

 mical discoveries. This contest became keen, and was 

 enlivened with wit and pleasantry ; but probably more 

 was lost by the irritation which it created, than was 

 in any respect gained by either party. A man, in de- 

 fending his own claims, is tempted to expose every de- 

 fect which tends to shake the general credit due to his 

 adversary, and the feelings which are most proitable 

 and becoming for men of liberal pursuits are extin- 

 guished. Those are happiest who feel no temptation to 

 enter on such controversies, or who, if accidentally 

 betrayed into them, soon perceive their pernicious ten- 

 dency, and in good time relinquish them. The sub- 

 jects of dispute were indebted to both of these celebra- 

 ted anatomists, but they both had been anticipated in 

 some of their boasted discoveries by Haller, in others 

 by Nouguez. The principal of them were the origin 

 and uses of the lymphatics ; the possibility of injecting 

 the epididymis, and the excretory ducts of the lacry- 

 mal gland. 



In 1763, Dr Hunter was elected a member of the 

 Society of Arts, and was appointed anatomical profes- 

 sor to the Royal Academy of Arts. By now applying 

 his anatomical knowledge to the elucidation of painting 

 and statuary, he displayed in a new field the versatility 

 and extent of his genius. In 1731, he was unanimous- 

 ly elected to succeed Dr John Fothergill as president 

 of the London Medical Society. In the same year, the 

 Royal Medical Society of Paris elected him one of their 

 foreign associates; and, in 1782, he received a similar 

 mark of honour from the Royal Academy of Sciences of 

 Paris. ' 



Dr Hunter's most distinguished publication was his 

 Anatomy of the Gravid Uterus, which he began in 1751 ; 

 but, from his great ambition to give it in the most com- 

 plete state, he delayed to publish it till 1775. 



In consequence of a memoir read by Mr John Hun- 

 ter in 1780 to the Royal Society on the functions of 

 the placenta, Dr Hunter was led into another keen dis- 

 pute with this eminent man and near relation, in which 

 he claimed, with considerable warmth, the share of me- 

 rit which belonged to himself in the discovery. He 

 seems to have perceived that he carried these disputes 

 too far. They promoted an irritability of temper, 

 which must have created to him much uneasiness ; and 

 it was remarked by those who occasionally conversed 

 with him on professional subjects, that sometimes, when 

 an organ or function was barely mentioned which had 

 been the subject of a dispute, he broke out into a tor- 

 rent of abuse of the knavery of his adversary. In the 

 supplement to the first part of his Commentaries, he ex- 

 cuses his polemical appearances by representing enthu- 

 siasm as necessary to promote the sciences, and observ- 

 ing, that no man had ever been a great anatomist who 

 had not been engaged in some violent dispute. 



Dr Hunter was long employed in collecting and ar- 

 ranging materials for a history of morbid concretions 

 formed in the human body. This design, however, 

 was left imperfect, along with others contained in dif- 

 ferent manuscripts. 



The magnificent museum, which we have already 

 mentioned, is a monument which will perpetuate the 

 name of Dr Hunter. The systematic manner in which 

 he planned and conducted that undertaking was cha- 

 racteristic of a strict philosophic prudence. He did not 

 follow the occupation of a collector under the influence 

 of a passion the effects of which might afterwards inter- 

 fere with his private happiness. He first laid aside a 



