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Home Extracts. 
The Hunterian Oration, 
DELIVERED IN THE THEATRE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF 
ENGLAND, 
On Thursday , February 14, 1850, 
By Frederick Carpenter Skey, Esy.. 
Lecturer on Anatomy, and Assistant- Surgeon to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. 
(From “ The Medical Times.”) 
Mr. President and Gentlemen, 
We are assembled on this occasion to do honour to the genius 
of Hunter — a name celebrated throughout the civilised world — 
and also to record the merits of those who, deceased since our last 
anniversary, have claims on the respectful remembrance of their 
brethren. The period of Mr. Hunter has formed an epoch in the 
history of medical science. His unceasing ardour, his spirit of in- 
vestigation, and his intellectual greatness, demand the homage of 
our veneration, and in the search of science leave competition far 
behind. In the range of modern physiological science, no one has 
approached his eminence or participated in his glory. No thought 
of private interest, no aspirations after fame, no ambition after 
distinctions, could divert his mind from the pursuit of truth and the 
investigation of Nature and her laws. On the almost untrodden 
ground of his researches his mind revelled in the luxuriance of 
intellectual riches. That his mind was imbued with the very 
spirit of earnest inquiry, his gigantic productions will testify to ; 
that his researches were conceived and carried out by superior in- 
telligence, I point to the philosophy of his written works. It was 
said of Bacon by Ben Johnson, that his words were so full of mean- 
ing, his hearers could not look aside from him without loss ; and 
even so did Hunter’s reflecting mind teem with originality of con- 
ception. He winged his way from the infancy to the mature age of 
science, discovering and maturing every subject that engaged his 
fixed attention. His intellect has been the frequent theme of eulo- 
gium in this theatre, and upon which my numerous predecessors 
have expatiated with eloquence. Combined with his intellect, 
were also certain moral qualities, which equally demand our praise, 
while they fortify our convictions of his claims to the gratitude and 
admiration of posterity. Ingenuous, disinterested, unreserved in 
communicating knowledge, he exhibited many of the excellencies 
of the true philosopher. He surveyed, as from an eminence, the 
great book of Nature, and his thoughts expanded by a natural 
elasticity as he became elevated above the grovelling influences of 
