HUNTERIAN ORATION. 
147 
period, what could be said in elucidation of his character or his 
investigations which was not familiar to every one in that assem¬ 
bly 1 None refused to recognise in his museum an evidence of un¬ 
wearied research—knowledge and labour almost incredible, as the 
work of one man in the short space of thirty-five years. Few had 
hesitated to believe, on the concurrent testimony of those of his 
contemporaries most qualified to judge, that in the sciences of ana¬ 
tomy, physiology, and pathology, whether comparative or human, 
descriptive or general, he first pointed out the manner in which the 
phenomena in organized beings could be unravelled. No one 
who had sufficiently studied his works would refuse to Hunter a 
place among those bright luminaries of science whose light, like 
that of the most distant of the heavenly bodies, may reach us for 
centuries after they have become extinct. The publication, in 
1835, of a new edition of his works, in which his opinions were 
illustrated by men most qualified for the undertaking; the cata¬ 
logue of the physiological museum, published within the last ten 
years, together with the able remarks of some of those whom 
he that day followed, had demonstrated how vast and varied a 
fund of knowledge was possessed by him on many important points 
which were unsuspected by all. By these, too, it was shewn, that 
few men ever lived who had the wonderful power and facility of 
exhibiting so much truth in so small a field; and now, by the 
joint labours of their President and Council, the new Catalogue of 
the Pathological Museum was almost completed, illustrated with 
extracts from his unpublished as well as from his before well- 
known pathological researches, calculated to shew, in the clearest 
manner, the preparations he was accustomed to employ in convey¬ 
ing instruction to his pupils by their means. Hitherto, the patho¬ 
logical had not harmonized with the other parts of the collection, 
although the merits of its great founder had not been unappreciated 
by a few select students. At present, through the numerous pur¬ 
chases made by the College at an expense of upwards of £4000, 
and by the donations, extensive and valuable, of its members, the 
collection had become double in number and value since the first 
catalogue was published in 1830, and might claim comparison 
with any other collection in that branch of science,—if, indeed, it 
might not boast of some superiority—whereby it might be seen 
how close was Hunter’s attention to disease. Then, also, they 
were in a better position to answer the question—even, perhaps, 
granting his great eminence as an anatomist and physiologist—• 
what are the facts as to the treatment of diseases, why surgeons 
always express for him such great admiration? Even in that as¬ 
sembly there might be some who had never studied the more 
finished of his works. 
