402 



NATURE 



[February 23, 1899 



Cost 0/ the Survey. 



It is ditiicull to say what the annual cost of such a Survey as 

 has been sketched would amount to. Were the ligyptian 

 Government in a position to place a steam-launch at the disposal 

 of the Survey, the cost of the working expenses, crew, and fuel, 

 including the salary of the Superintendent and the pay of the 

 taxidermist, should not exceed, under judicious management, 

 more than 450/. to 500/. per annum for a period of three years. 



The expenses would have been much greater had not the 

 Director of the Natural History Departments of the British 

 Museum undertaken to supply the necessary collecting-boxes, 

 sixty in number, with alcohol to till them. But apart from 

 this there would be the initial cost of nets and other neces- 

 sary apparatus, which may be put down at 20/. ; but if the 

 Superintendent were selected in England, his pa,ssage to and 

 from Egypt would have to be met. 



The cost of the transmission of the collecting-boxes from 

 I^ondon to Cairo, as well as the cost of their return-carriage to 

 London, would have to be borne by the Egyptian Government. 



The cost of publication would be about 1500/. This cal- 

 culation is based on the probably correct supposition that one 

 hundred plates would sufiice for the illustration in a satisfactory 

 manner of the fishes of the Nile. The cost of each plate would 

 be 12/., so that 1200/. would be required for the illustration of 

 the work, provided all the figures are uncoloured. The same 

 number of plates in chromolithography would amount to nearly 

 2000/. 



The printing of the text should not cost more than 300/. , so that 

 were 1500/. set apart for the bringing out of a volume uniform 

 with the " Reptiles and Batrachians of Egj'pt," but with un- 

 coloured plates, the total cost of the undertaking would be met 

 by a grant of 3000/. spread over a period of three years. 



John Anderson. 

 71 Harrington (lardens, London, January 12. 



We, the undersigned, desire to express our general approval 

 of the scheme detailed above for a Survey of the Nile, with the 

 object of making known the species of fishes inhabiting its 

 waters, and we beg to recommend it strongly to the favourable 

 consideration of the Egyptian Government. 



LlSTEK, President of the Royal Society of London. 

 A. GUMHER, President of the Linnean Society of London. 

 E. R.4Y L.\NKESTER, Director of the Natural History Depart- 

 ments, British Museum. 

 P. L. SCL.ATER, Secretary of the Zoological Society of London. 



HUNTER AND THE SCIENCE OF SURGER 1'.' 

 TN accordance with the terms of a deed establishing the 

 -*■ Hunterian Oration, we celebrate to-day John Hunter's name 

 and fame. Born on February 14 in the year 1728 at Long 

 Calderwood, a small estate his father farmed, some eight miles 

 from Glasgow, he died on October 16, 1793, in his sixty-fifth 

 year, celebrated alike as a great surgeon, a profound biologist, 

 and a man of genius. 



Here, in view of this noble presentment of Hunter by the 

 foremost painter of his time, the orator is called upon to praise 

 its foremost surgeon. 



The picture was painted by Reynolds in 1785, when Hunter 

 was fifty-seven years old, and as we look at it we perceive him 

 in deep reverie, in one of those waking dreams to which he 

 refers in his lectures. He has paused from writing in order to 

 think out some problem, and, as he often said, it was a delight 

 to him to think. As we dwell upon the features we cannot 

 doubt that a sudden inspiration has flashed upon and gradually 

 pervaded his mind, some great scientific truth or generalisation 

 which he has grasped, and is pondering with intense satisfaction. 



Buckle, in his " History of Civilisation, " writes : " It some- 

 times seems as if Hunter's understanding were troubled by the 

 grandeur of its own conceptions, and doubted the path it ought 

 to take. Still, his powers were so e.xlraordinary, that among 



Ihe sni.->llcr mammals. Before specimens arc placed in alcohol they should 

 have the abdomen slil open to admit of the spirit having free access to the 

 viscera. The date of capture, the character of the ground on which the 

 animal has been found, the c.\act locality, and the sex of each individual 

 should be entered in the day-book opposite to a number corresponding to 

 the number attached to the specimen. 



' .\bstract of the Hunterian Oration delivered by Sir William M.acCormac, 

 r..irt., K.C.V.O., President of the Royal tolleue of .Surgeons of Kngland, 

 at the College, on Kebruary 14. 



NO. 1530. VOL. 59] 



the great masters of Organic Science he belongs to the same rank 

 as Aristotle, Harvey, and Bichat, and is somewhat superior to 

 Haller and Cuvier." 



To appreciate, or even fully to comprehend, the labours of 

 Hunter, one must strive to judge them from the standpoint of 

 his time, for in this way only can we form a just conception of 

 their splendid superiority. 



On Hunter's early life and the many moot points it involves 

 —his preliminary education, whether he was for a time a 

 carpenter by trade, why he was not sent to (_;iasgow College 

 like his brothers, or why in later life he spent some time at 

 Oxford University without being in the least appreciative of the 

 training he mij^hl there take advantage of — I do not purpose to 

 dwell. William Hunter desired his brother John should be 

 trained as a physici-m, and sent him to Oxford to obtain 

 the necessary cla.ssical education, but during the short period he 

 spent there he found himself quite unable to study Latin and 

 Greek, and spoke afterwards rather contemptuously of the 

 ancient learning. 



Hunter's scientific career dates from his arrival in London in 

 174S, where, when twenty years of age, he joined his brother 

 William's school as an ill-educated youth, new to all the 

 amenities of life, brusque in manner and negligent in appearance, 

 yet with a keen sense of physical enjoyment. As a pupil he 

 showed a marvellous aptitude for anatomy, and soon became a 

 .successful teacher of it, but he always remained a learner in that 

 book of nature which was ever open before him, and whose 

 pages, until he died forty-five years later, he never ceased to 

 turn, interpreting aright many of its obscurest passages. 



In 1759, undermined in health by ten years of incessant toil, 

 he obtained an appointment in the army and sailed with Keppel 

 for Belleisle, and afterwards accompanie<l the expedition into 

 Portugal. It was there that he studied the phases of inflamma- 

 tion and the treatment of gunshot wound.s. 



When he returned to London, with nothing but his half-pay 

 to provide the wherewithal to live upon, and nothing but his 

 genius to trust to for advancement. Hunter's life became one of 

 untiring labour. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society 

 when thirty-nine, a year later became surgeon to St. George's 

 Hospital, and in 1776 was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to 

 the King. 



In 1786 he was appointed Deputy Surgeon-C.eneral in the 

 army, and three years later became Surgeon-Cieneral. He also 

 published his work on Venereal Diseases in 17S6, and the follow- 

 ing year received the Copley Medal from the Royal Society on 

 account of many valuable papers. His great work on ihe 

 " Blood and Inflammation," however, still remained unfinished 

 after thirty years of labour bestowed upon it. and was only 

 published after his death. 



At fifty years of age he had reached the zenith of his surgical 

 career, having done more to improve the .science of surgery than 

 all the other surgeons of Europe had done before him. 



On the death of Pott, Hunter became the chief surgical 

 authority in London ; his opinion was highly valued in ditticult 

 cases, and he acquired a lucrative practice. There is no doubt 

 he was an admiraljle clinical teacher and a courageous operator, 

 and although his systematic lectures on surgery were marred by 

 a faulty delivery and occasional obscurity of style, they attracted 

 all those who afterwards attained distinction amongst their 

 contemporaries. 



The evidence of Cline, Abernethy, Astley Cooper, Royer 

 Collard, Billroth-^surgeons indeed cf every .scho,>l — emphasise 

 the excellence of these lectures on the Principles of Surgery, ami 

 it is still evident to the reader of to-day in the somewhat 

 fragmentary record which h.as been preserved by Hunter's pupils. 

 Hunter was deficient in what we are pleased lo call general 

 culture, and doubtless he suffered in consequence. He read but 

 little, and many of his discoveries had been anticipated by 

 others, but when this was brought to his knowledge he 

 abandoned any claim he might have advanced. It appeared to 

 him of small conse<]uence by whom a discovery was made if it 

 only proved the stepping-stone to a higher and more complete 

 knowledge. He was no mere collector of facts in order simply 

 to augment their number. He thought too much attention 

 could not be paid to facts so long as they helped to establish 

 principles, and in the capacity for generalisation Hunter was 

 pre-eminent. He h.ad a great power of estimating what was 

 worth doing, and how best to do it, his descriptions are graphic, 

 and as an expositor of what he had lo tell he is often un- 

 surpassed. 



