February 23, 1899] 



JVA TURE 



403 



lie was attacked in 1789 by severe illness, and until his 

 death four years later his life proved a very suffering one. 

 Constant work and insufficient sleep doubtless shortened his 

 days. 



llis death, sudden and tragic in its circumstances, happened 

 in St. George's Hospital whilst he was demanding from some- 

 what hostile colleagues what he regarded as a just concession to 

 his pupils. 



In the first instance Hunter's work was biological, his range 

 including both the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and the 

 mineral kingdom as well, and to illustrate his investigations he 

 became a collector. But he was chiefly and finally a surgeon, 

 and to the development of surgery he brought all the knowledge 

 and all the training which he had acquired in other branches of 

 .science. 



He carries us beyond mere handicraft and detail into the 

 region of general principles and law. The surgery of the 

 Middle Ages was a trade, Anibroise Pare and Jean Louis Petit 

 converted it into an art, John Hunter elevated it to the rank of 

 a science. 



Hunter's life and work in.spired his successors with the spirit 

 of observation, investigation and experiment. We see this 

 e.Kemplified in his great followers, Clir^e, Abernethy, Astley 

 Cooper, Travers, Green, Brodie, Lawrence, and others since 

 their time. They have been makers of English surgery, and 

 each in turn has done much to raise it to that high standard 

 which it has always maintained. 



And now I may refer in detail, yet of necessity very shortly, 

 to some part of llunter's work in illustration of what I have just 

 said, and show that his views, immensely ahead of his time, fall 

 little short of the principles guiding the most modern surgeon. 



I shall first allude to his observations on Animal Heat, which 

 are of the greatest interest, especially when we remember the 

 imperfect quality of the instrumental aid at his disposal ; then 

 say some words as to his opinions upon Injuries of the Plead, 

 and his never-to-be-forgotten work on Aneurism ; I shall briefly 

 review his study of Venereal Diseases ; and, lastly, notice his 

 great work on Inflammation and Gunshot Wounds — the last a 

 .subject which has always interested me. Nor could the account 

 be in any sense considered complete without a reference to the 

 past and present state of our great museum, itself an imperish- 

 able monument to John Hunter's memory. 



In 1799, six years after Hunter's death. Parliament purchased 

 his collection and subsequently handed it over in trust to the 

 Royal College of Surgeons for the public advantage. Further 

 grants of money were voted to the College to erect a proper 

 building for preserving and extending " Master " Hunter's col- 

 lection, and to build a theatre for the delivery of public lectures 

 on anatomy and surgery. 



The Hunterian Museum is a monument sufficient alone for 

 the fame of any man. Hunter's aim was no less than to illus- 

 trate the whole question of life both in health and in disease. 

 Nature's handiwork in all its manifold perfections is there clearly 

 shown forth by the never-ceasing labour of this great intellect, 

 and he did in the main compass his splendid aspirations. 



Hunter rendered to his art and science greater service than 

 any man had done before him, and his claim to our admiration 

 rests not merely on what he did, but on what he suggested 

 might be done. 



One cannot but feel amazed at the multitude of the subjects 

 which engaged his interest and attention, the greatness of his 

 achievements, or the far-reaching influence of so many of his 

 inquiries. His spirit survives in the energy of others who I 

 follow in his footsteps, and serves to stimulate every student of 

 biological science. 



His supreme endeavour was to study life in all its many-sided 

 manifestations. This is the noblest form of study, and the 

 most inexhaustible, yet the problemof life will remain a mystery 

 transcending the power of human investigation or human 

 imagination. 



Billroth regarded Hunter as one of the greatest men the 

 English nation has produced, and his work on Inflammation 

 and Gunshot Wounds as the corner-stone of modern English 

 and German surgery. " From Hunter's time to the present 

 day," he says, "English surgery has had about it something 

 noble, and nowhere, either in ancient or modern times, can the 

 pattern be found of a grander scientific career." 



Masters of our craft at epochs in surgical history have from 

 time to time declared their art to be then so near perfection 

 that further improvement was impossible. 



May we not, nevertheless, hope and expect that surgery will 

 still accomplish new triumphs and yet greater completeness? I 

 am not of those who think there can be any finality in human 

 progress ; to believe so would, I consider, render life no longer 

 worth living in its higher sense and greater aspirations. Rather 

 let us consider ourselves as having but just crossed the threshold 

 of the great temple of science, knowing only a small part of that 

 which yet remains to be known. 



Ana;sthesia has rendered surgical procedures capable of a 

 realisation which not even in dreams could we have supposed 

 possible. It has permitted many new departures in surgery, 

 made many operations feasible which had previously been con- 

 demned, and has proved a help of extreme value in the diagnosis 

 of disease. As Oliver Wendell Holmes has said : "The fierce 

 extremity of suffering has been steeped in the waters of forgetful- 

 ness, and the deepest furrow in the knotted brow of agony has 

 been smoothed for ever." 



Furthermore, one of the scientific descendants of Hunter, 

 deeply imbued with his spirit, transcendently patient and pains- 

 taking in detail as was his master, as minute an observer of 

 nature's ways, and as careful an experimenter, after much try- 

 ing and much thinking, has realised, in the discovery of the 

 methods of antiseptic surgery, a benefit to mankind which only 

 surgeons can to the full appreciate. What was hazardous 

 before is now rendered safe, what was accomplished with pain 

 and suffering is now free from both. There is scarcely a limit 

 to what might be said in praise of this great work. The name 

 of Lister, like that of John Hunter, will stand forth in the 

 records of scientific progress as one who has immeasurably 

 benefited humanity, and as the author of the means whereby 

 surgery has been mainly enabled to make that marvellous pro- 

 gress of which we are all so proud. This is recognised through- 

 out the world, and were I not convinced that our science has 

 fresh achievements in store, I should say that Lister had finally 

 crowned the edifice wliose corner-stone Hunter laid. 



John Hunter's career has been presented to audiences in this 

 theatre from almost every aspect, and his life and work have been 

 reviewed by the greatest of his successors, some of whom have 

 compelled our admiration by their eloquence and the beauty of 

 the language in which they have expressed their thoughts. I 

 do not expect to equal these, yet I would hope that my story, 

 although '■ a twice told tale," has aroused in you some measure 

 of sympathetic response. The study of Hunter's works is in 

 itself a liberal education. They show his almost sujjerhuman 

 energy, the versatility of his genius, his extraordinary powers of 

 observation, and beyond all these the absolute mastery of his 

 will over bodily suffering. Of all the great minds which have 

 illuminated the scientific world and guided its destinies, John 

 Hunter's is the one which first directed surgery into the path- 

 ways of science, and dying left to surgeons a future in the 

 memory of his past. 



He is the one great man without whose aid it is impossible to 

 imagine surgery all that it now is ; we cannot take his influence 

 away and yet retain all that we now possess. Our science might 

 have spared some other workers, but it could not have become 

 the science we know without John Hunter. 



This great surgeon, one of the greatest men who ever prac- 

 tised surgery, has now long gone to his rest. Cut off in the 

 midst of his glory, he died in harness. Vet, though he be gone, 

 we may well apply to John Hunter what has been said of a pre- 

 eminent statesman lately passed away: "The nation lives that 

 has produced him, may yet produce others like him, and in the 

 iTieantime it is rich in his memory, rich in his life, and rich 

 above all in his animating and inspiring example." 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



O.KFORD. — The 197th meeting 01 the University Junior 

 Scientific Club was held in the large lecture-room of the 

 museum on Wednesday, February 15, the President in the 

 chair. There were present ninety members and twenty visitors. 

 Prof. Odling delivered a lecture on chemical views in contro- 

 versy about the year 1850. The following is an abstract of the , 

 lecture : To put back the clock is always a very difficult task, 

 and to understand exactly the views of chemists of fifty years ago 

 is extremely hard, as one must forget for the time being all that 

 has been discovered since. In chemistry, as in most other 



NO. 1530, VOL. 59] 



