Nature [February 11, 1928
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210 NATURE [FEBRUARY 11, 1928 The Bicentenary of John Hunter. By Sir ARTHUR KEITH, F.R.S. ONSIDER for a moment the unenviable position to buy Hunter's museum for £15,000. The collec C.) of John Hunter's two executors in the year tion was handed over to the Corporation of Surgeons 1793-his nephew Dr. Matthew Baillie and his in 1800; that body obtained at the same time a young brother-in-law, Mr. (later Sir) Everard Home. new charter, became the College of Surgeons, and Hunter's sudden death on Oct. 16, 1793, in his established itself and its museum on the south side sixty-sixth year, left, on their hands a huge estab of Lincoln's Inn Fields-where both still flourish. lishment running The two ex from Leicester ecutors continued Square to Charing to believe in Cross Road-just Hunter's great to the south of ness, as may be the site now oc seen from the fol cupied by the lowing quotation Alhambra Music taken from the Hall. The income issue of the Col of the establish lege calendar for ment had sud the present year : denly ceased; a "In the year sum of more than 1813, Dr. Matthew £10,000 a year was Baillie and Sir needed to keep it Eve rard Home, going. A brief Bart., executors of search showed John Hunter, 'be them that the place ing desirous of was in debt ; bills showing a lasting mark of respect ' to had to be met. the memory of the Hunter's carriage late Mr. John 'blood-horses' and Hunter, gave to coach had to go ; the College the sum Mrs. Hunter, bril of £1684 : 4 : 4, liant and fashion three per cent. Consolidated Bank able, had also to Annuities for the part with her endowment of an coachman, her annual oration, to c a r r i a g e, h e r be called the Hun horses, and sedan terian oration, and chair. Pictures, to be delivered in books, furniture the theatre of the College on the 14th had to be sold to of February, the provide Mrs. Birthday of John Hunter and her Hunter, by the daughter with a Master, or one of modest shelter in the Governors for Brighton. The the time being, or weekly wage bill such other member of the Court of had to be reduced; Assistants as should the staff, number be appointed-such ing more than a . oration to be ex- FIG. 1.-The statue of John Hunter, executed by Weekes and erected m the Royal . score, was reduced College of Surgeons, London, by public subscription in1858. press1ve of the at a stroke to one merits in Compara -Mr. Hunter's young museum assistant, William tive Anatomy, Physiology, and Surgery, not only of Clift. John Hunter, but also of all such persons as should What was to be done with the Museum which be from time to time deceased, whose labours may have contributed to their improvement or extension." Hunter had erected in the yard or garden of his premises On this treasury he had lavished The first oration was given in 1814 by Sir Everard every sovereign he could earn or borrow, and Home ; last year it was delivered by the president every hour he could steal from practice, hospital, of the College, Sir Berkeley Moynihan ; this year Sir and sleep. It was the harvest of an intense life Holburt Waring is Orator, and will take the oppor time. After seven years of 'lobbying,' the two tunity of measuring the debt which modern sur executors succeeded in persuading a government in gery owes to discoveries made by chemists and by search of money to wage successful war with France, physicists. Hunter's two executors were interested No. 3041, VoL. 121] © 1928 Nature Publishing Group FEBRUARY 11, 1928] NATURE 211 parties; were they justified in launching on succeed cultured in manner ; he had an eye on Court and ing generations this act of Hunter worship ? Is on the main chance ; he was a scholar, a brilliant Hunter's memory being kept alive by a species of teacher, kept himself closely in touch with the best 'artificial respiration' ? Many younger surgeons that was being thought and done in medical Europe, would return a frank affirmative; what Hunter and made observations for himself at first hand. thought and did, they hold, has no bearing on the In October 1748, William found his school in a surgical problem of the twentieth century. With prosperous state; his dissecting room was crowded; whom lies the truth ? With the executors, or the preparations which he had made and preserved with these modern critics ? to illustrate his lectures began to form an imposing Before seeking to measure our indebtedness to museum. His youngest brother, John, although Hunter, let us first inquire how a youth-the twenty years of age, was s.till idling at home ; he youngest of a family of ten, bred on a bleak upland had grown into a short, thick-set fellow, with farm some eight sandy hair and miles southward freckled face. of Glasgow, suc William brought ceeded in estab him to London and lishing himself in set him to work London as the lead in the dissecting ing surgeon of his rooi:n. John took day. John Hun to the life as a ter's career was de duck takes to termined in 1736 ; water ; he had " Jockie," then a hands and could spoiled boy of use them ; he never eight, was running really cared for wild at home, while books ; he pre his brother Wil ferred to decipher liam, ten years his the hieroglyphics senior, had finished of life at first with the Univer hand ; he chose to sity of Glasgow and register his dis was thinking of the coveriesin museum Church as a career. jars rather than It was in this year in printed pages. that a young prac It was only when titioner- William he turned lecturer Cullen by name that he was com settledin theneigh pelled to reduce his bourhood. In due o b s e r v a t i o n s, time he was to be thoughts, and ex come the great Dr. periments to Cullen and hold in words. He was medicine much the careless of dress, same position as unconventional in his contemporary manner, and un Samuel Johnson compromising in held in literature, speech. An un FIG. 2.-Portrait of John Hunter, from Sharp's engraving of the original picture but in the mean- painted by Sir J oshua Reynolds in 1788, when Hunter was sixty years of age. ceasing search into time we are con the nature of life be cerned with him merely as medical attendant on came his religion. He was resolved to win on merit; the Hunter family. He recognised William's and in the long run, sheer merit was victorious. ability; took him into his house as pupil-appren Cullen launched William on the sea of medicine, and tice; put him in touch with the medical problems in due course William launched his brother John of the time, and showed him how the leading minds now the subject of seventy-four H unterian Orations. of Europe were seeking to solve them. We are So I come back to my main question : What did indebted to Cullen for the medical Hunters. Hunter do for medicine that we should continue William Hunter's ambition was thus fired ; to be mindful of him ? Great men, as a rule, are in October 1740 he visited London and found a so easily labelled-Jenner, Hunter's pupil, dis pretext for not returning to Scotland. There covered the efficacy of vaccination ; Charles Bell were great hospitals in London then, but no demonstrated the action of spinal nerves; Marshall medical schools were attached to them as is the Hall discovered reflex action ; Lister, antiseptic case now. Such schools as existed were in private surgery. In not one of these cases is the label hands. William established one in Covent Garden, adequate, but the public demands that its great men laying himself out for practice at the same time. must be ticketed. There is no tag for John Hunter; He was careful in dress, suave in speech, and to do him justice we must give him a hundred. No. 3041, VoL. 121] © 1928 Nature Publishing Group 212 NATURE [FEBRUARY 11, 1928 It has been said that Hunter was the founder as represented by tissue culture, tumour grafting, of scientific surgery. If by this is meant that transplanting of living organs and parts-can fail surgery will become a science only when all the to see that after a century and a half we are again secrets of life have been revealed and mastered, returning to the Hunterian outlook and the then Hunter has a just right to such a title. For Hunterian methods of approach. the obsession of his life was the discovery of the Hunter's published works are contained in six mechanism of living matter; he perceived that volumes-the four volumes which are included life was the same in all its forms ; an organised in Palmer's edition (1837) and the two precious blood clot in a patient in St. George's Hospital volumes of "Essays and Observations " published was for him the same thing as the hydra which by Sir Richard Owen in 1861. A study of these he grew in his vivarium at Earl's Court. He volumes shows how dangerous it is to say wherein applied the same method of study to both.