A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



museum. In this museum were anatomical prepara- 

 tions, coins, minerals, and natural-history specimens. 

 Hunter's weakness was his love of controversy and 

 his resentment of contradiction. This brought him 

 into strained relations with many of the leading physi- 

 cians of his time, notably his own brother John, who 

 himself was probably not entirely free from blame in 

 the matter. Hunter is said to have excused his own 

 irritability on the grounds that being an anatomist, 

 and accustomed to " the passive submission of dead 

 bodies," contradictions became the more unbearable. 

 Many of the physiological researches begun by him 

 were carried on and perfected by his more famous 

 brother, particularly his investigations of the capil- 

 laries, but he added much to the anatomical knowl- 

 edge of several structures of the body, notably as to 

 the structure of cartilages and joints. 



JOHN HUNTER 



In Abbot Islip's chapel in Westminster Abbey, close 

 to the resting-place of Ben Jonson, rest the remains 

 of John Hunter (1728-1793), famous in the annals 

 of medicine as among the greatest physiologists and 

 surgeons that the world has ever produced: a man 

 whose discoveries and inventions are counted by 

 scores, and whose field of research was only limited by 

 the outermost boundaries of eighteenth-century science, 

 although his efforts were directed chiefly along the 

 lines of his profession. 



Until about twenty years of age young Hunter had 

 shown little aptitude for study, being unusually fond 

 of out-door sports and amusements; but about that 



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