Chapter V (1)

_WILLIAM AND JOHN HUNTER AND THE APPLICATIONS OF ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY TO SURGERY._

It is somewhat surprising that anatomy, the necessary basis of a sound treatment of the human body in disease, should have so long remained comparatively uncultivated in this country as a practical art, after Harvey had led the way and shown how brilliant discoveries might be made by dissection. Continental schools certainly put to shame early English efforts in anatomy: and it would appear not easy to establish in England any new study, unless the subject is one from which large pecuniary profits may immediately be anticipated—in which enterprise there can be no sort of merit. When a man has attained some reputation as an anatomist or physiologist, all the efforts of British society seem to be directed towards taking him away from that pursuit of which he has proved himself an ornament, and converting him into a man whose business it is to cure private ailments, thereby preventing him but too successfully, in most instances, from pursuing that for which he has shown conspicuous talent. Thus we find Cheselden, whose publication of an Anatomy of the Human Body, in 1713, and Osteography in 1733, had shown great anatomical ability, was carried into a large private practice. And William Hunter, the founder of the first great anatomical museum, was diverted from his proper studies to become an obstetrician, in order to obtain money for his special objects.

WILLIAM HUNTER, whose name has been previously mentioned in our account of Cullen, was born on May 23, 1718, at Kilbride, Lanarkshire, being the seventh of ten children of John and Agnes Hunter. At fourteen he was sent to Glasgow for his education, remaining there five years, it being his father’s wish that he should enter the Church. Imbibing liberal opinions, he soon became averse to this proposal, and his intimacy with Dr. Cullen determined his thoughts towards medicine. In 1737 he became Cullen’s resident pupil at Hamilton, and remained with him three years. It was then agreed that he should go and study medicine at Edinburgh and London, and afterwards return to Hamilton to a partnership with his master. Their mutual attachment was lifelong.

The winter of 1740-1 was spent by William Hunter at Edinburgh, where Monro primus was then teaching anatomy. The following summer he went to London, and obtained the position of assistant to Dr. Douglas, who was then engaged on a great book on osteology, which he did not live to complete, the education of Dr. Douglas’s son being also placed in his charge. He considered this offer so inviting that he remained in London, although it was contrary to the wishes of his now aged father, who thought the arrangement with Dr. Cullen preferable. The father died on the 30th October following, aged 78.

The young man soon became expert in dissection, and he entered as a surgeon’s pupil at St. George’s Hospital. His prospects were soon after clouded by the death of Dr. Douglas, but his residence in the family was not interrupted. As early as 1743 he communicated to the Royal Society a paper on the Structure and Diseases of Articulating Cartilages; and thereafter was occupied in preparing to commence teaching anatomy. His opportunity came in 1746, when Mr. Samuel Sharpe gave up a course of lectures on surgery, which he had been delivering to a society of navy surgeons in Covent Garden, and recommended William Hunter in his place. His lectures were found so satisfactory that they asked him to extend his course to anatomy. He had great timidity in lecturing at first, but soon gained confidence. One of his pupils who accompanied him home after his introductory lecture, relates that he carried his fees for the course, amounting to seventy guineas, in a bag under his cloak, and that he remarked that it was a larger sum than he had ever been master of before. The profits of these courses he expended in no niggardly spirit, to a large extent in befriending others, and he was consequently unable to begin his next season’s lectures at the proper time, owing to lack of means to advertise their commencement. He learnt a salutary lesson by this delay, for he found that by so far straining his resources he had only encouraged the idleness of his friends. This made him for the future cautious of lending money, and more economical than before, and may be said to have laid the foundation of his fortune.

In 1747 William Hunter was admitted a member of the College of Surgeons, and in the spring took a continental journey, in which he met Albinus at Leyden. Although he commenced practice as a surgeon, he gradually discontinued it when he began to succeed as an accoucheur, being appointed surgeon-accoucheur to both the Middlesex Hospital and the British Lying-in Hospital. His conciliating manners and pleasing address contributed to make him popular in this branch of practice. In 1750 he obtained the degree of M.D. from the University of Glasgow, and about the same time ceased to reside with Mrs. Douglas, and went to Jermyn Street, so long associated with the Hunters. In 1751 he visited his home at Long Calderwood, Kilbride, and gratified his affection for Dr. Cullen, who had now become established at Glasgow. As Cullen was one day riding with him, he pointed out to Hunter how conspicuous Long Calderwood was from a distance, when the latter replied with energy, “Well, if I live, I shall make it still more conspicuous.” This, however, was his only visit to his native place after his settling in London.

William Hunter joined the College of Physicians in 1755, and the Medical Society about the same time. His “History of an Aneurism of the Aorta,” appears in the first volume published by that Society, in 1757. In regard to aneurisms he had made many original observations, such as to place the subject in a totally new aspect. Several papers he contributed to this Society bear directly on problems of interest in midwifery and the diseases of women.

It was in 1762 that the first edition of the “Medical Commentaries” appeared, in which Monro secundus was severely attacked for having claimed as his own discoveries which William Hunter had, years before, promulgated at his lectures. It is to be regretted that in regard to these very matters, as well as others, disputes afterwards arose between William Hunter and his brother John, who it appears had made at least some of these discoveries, while engaged as assistant to his brother. In respect of a number of these, the elder brother gave credit to his junior both when lecturing and in his publications; in regard to others, the elder gave no credit at all when John conceived himself entitled to much, or all, of the praise of originality. Both brothers were strikingly sensitive as to their claims to originality, and William Hunter on several occasions seems to have regarded a new demonstration as his property because made in his dissecting-room, though not by himself. Yet we find it recorded that in the winter 1762-3, when the brothers had separated, William Hunter would frequently say in his lectures: “In this I am only my brother’s interpreter”—“I am simply the demonstrator of this discovery; it was my brother’s.” We must recur to this subject later, merely mentioning now, that John Hunter acted as his brother’s assistant and dissected for him from 1748, and that from 1755 to 1760 a certain portion of the lectures was delivered by him; in 1760 they separated.

There is no question that in general education, in manners, in delivery, in all that makes the successful lecturer and the attractive practitioner, William Hunter greatly excelled his brother. Dr. Baillie has said of him, “No one ever possessed more enthusiasm for his art, more persevering industry, more acuteness of investigation, more perspicuity of expression, or indeed, a greater share of natural eloquence. He excelled very much any lecturer whom I have ever heard in the clearness of his arrangements, the aptness of his illustrations, and the elegance of his diction.” If it were not for the tenacity with which he pursued controversial topics, and his unfortunate disagreement with his brother, there would be nothing to mar the pleasurable nature of the picture of William Hunter. The way in which he himself viewed this side of his character may be gathered from the following extract from the Supplement to his Medical Commentaries, published in 1777.

“It is remarkable, that there is scarce a considerable character in anatomy, that is not connected with some warm controversy. Anatomists have ever been engaged in contention. And indeed, if a man has not such a decree of enthusiasm, and love of the art, as will make him impatient of unreasonable opposition, and of encroachments upon his discoveries and his reputation, he will hardly become considerable in anatomy, or in any other branch of natural knowledge.

“These reflections afford some comfort to me, who unfortunately have been already engaged in two public disputes. I have imitated some of the greatest characters, in what is commonly reckoned their worst part: but I have also endeavoured to be useful; to improve and diffuse the knowledge of anatomy: and surely it will be allowed here, that if I have not been serviceable to the public in this way, it has not been for want of diligence, or love of the service.

“It has likewise been observed of anatomists, that they are all liable to the error of being severe on each other in their disputes. Perhaps from being in the habit of examining objects with care and precision, they may be more disgusted with rash assertions, and false reasoning. From the habit of guarding against being deceived by appearances, and of finding out truth, they may be more than ordinarily provoked by any attempt to impose upon them; and for anything that we know, the passive submission of dead bodies, their common objects, may render them less able to bear contradiction.”

It would have been pleasing if we could have related that William Hunter allowed supreme merit to any one anatomist or physiologist who preceded him. But we find him saying about Harvey: “In merit, Harvey’s rank must be comparatively low indeed. So much had been discovered by others, that little more was left for him to do, than to dress it up into a system; and that, every judge on such matters will allow, required no extraordinary talents. Yet, easy as it was, it made him immortal. But none of his writings show him to have been a man of uncommon abilities.” Dr. Hunter must surely have been aware that this was carping criticism, for on a preceding page he had spoken of Harvey as a first-rate genius for sagacity and application.

The years after his brother’s secession brought Dr. Hunter to the summit of professional success. His obstetric knowledge and skill were known to be so great that he was called in to consultation respecting the Queen in 1762. Two years later he was appointed physician extraordinary to her majesty. His increasing engagements soon left him little time for his dissecting-room and lectures, and he engaged as assistant one of his pupils, William Hewson, and afterwards took him into partnership in his lectures. But this connection was severed, owing to disputes, in 1770, and Hewson commenced lecturing on his own account, and achieved great success, which was cut short, however by his early death from fever in 1774. Cruickshank was his successor with Dr. Hunter, and continued his partner till the death of the latter.

In 1768, the year after his election into the Royal Society, William Hunter was appointed the first Professor of Anatomy to the newly-founded Royal Academy, and he entered upon this field of work with great vigour, applying his anatomical knowledge to painting and sculpture with his usual success. On the death of Dr. Fothergill he was elected President of the Society of Physicians, now the Medical Society of London.

The most remarkable work which William Hunter published was a great series of folio plates of the Human Gravid Uterus, begun in 1751, and published in 1775. In the dedication of this work to the King he acknowledged that in most of the dissections he had been assisted by his brother, “whose accuracy in anatomical researches is so well known,” he says, “that to omit this opportunity of thanking him for that assistance would be in some measure to disregard the future reputation of the work itself.” But this acknowledgment did not content John Hunter, who claimed the original merit of most of the discoveries his brother announced, and communicated a full account to the Royal Society in 1780, five years after his brother’s work was published. At the next meeting of the Society William Hunter replied to his brother’s claims, and John rejoined. The consequence was that the Society published nothing on the subject, but retained the papers of both in manuscript. The anatomical description of William Hunter’s plates was completed by his nephew, Dr. Baillie, and published in 1794.

A still more important work, as regarded costliness, was the formation of the museum, which still remains for the benefit of students as the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow University. Economical from the first, as regarded his personal expenses, William Hunter, after laying aside a sufficient sum to provide for old age or sickness, applied his thoughts to the foundation of an anatomical school in London. During Mr. Grenville’s administration, in 1765, he petitioned him for the grant of a piece of ground on which to build an anatomical theatre, undertaking to spend £7000 on the building, and to endow a permanent professorship of anatomy. It can hardly be believed that such a munificent offer was rejected; but it was the middle of the eighteenth century, and the government pension to Dr. Johnson was probably considered the utmost stretch of public countenance to learning and science. Lord Shelburne, it is true, expressed a wish that Dr. Hunter’s proposal might be carried out by means of a general subscription, and offered himself to contribute a thousand guineas. But William Hunter was not the man to depend for the execution of his projects upon an appeal of this kind, and he consequently purchased a plot of ground in Great Windmill Street, near the Haymarket, where he built a suitable house for his own residence, with a lecture-theatre, dissecting-rooms, and a handsome room for a museum. To this he removed in 1770 from Jermyn Street. He had already a very large collection of human, comparative, and morbid anatomy, which he continued to augment. He purchased all the best collections of morbid and other anatomical specimens that were offered for sale, such as those of Sandys, Falconer (which included Hewson’s), and Blackall. To these were added numerous specimens of rare diseases, presented to him by medical friends and pupils. We discern the light in which he viewed these gifts by the following statement in one of his publications: “I look upon everything of this kind which is given to me as a present to the public, and consider myself as thereby called upon to serve the public with more diligence.” And the museum was always open to the many visitors who were attracted by its fame.

Dr. Hunter’s tastes expanded. He collected fossils, rare books, and coins. Dr. Harwood described his library as including the most magnificent treasure of Greek and Latin books that had been accumulated by any person then living. The anatomist even discovered a bibliographical novelty in comparing two copies of the Aldine edition of Theocritus, which he found to present material differences, though representing the same edition. The collection of coins in this museum was of such value and importance that an illustrated quarto was devoted to the description of a portion of them by William Combe. The preface gives an account of the progress of the collection, which had now cost no less than twenty thousand pounds.

Another important addition was made to the museum in 1781 in the shape of Dr. Fothergill’s collection of shells, corals, and other natural history specimens. Dr. Fothergill’s will directed that William Hunter should have the first refusal of the museum at five hundred pounds less than its value as ascertained by appraisement, and Dr. Hunter eventually made the purchase for twelve hundred pounds.

This noble museum was left by his will, not to his brother John, but to his nephew Dr. Baillie, and in case of his death to Mr. Cruickshank, for thirty years, at the end of which time the collection was to go to the University of Glasgow. Dr. Baillie, however, handed it over to Glasgow before the time specified. Eight thousand pounds was also left to keep up and increase the collection.

Dr. Hunter never retired from practice, although much tormented by gout in his later years. He thought at one time of settling down somewhere in Scotland, when suffering more than usual from ill-health, but having found the title of an estate offered him to be defective, and also having to provide for his constantly increasing museum expenses, he laid aside his intention. He continued most persevering both in his practice and in his lectures, notwithstanding his augmented sufferings, until on the 15th of March 1783 he was almost prostrated. On the 20th, however, he would deliver his lecture introductory to the operations of surgery, notwithstanding the dissuasions of his friends. Towards the end of his lecture he fainted, and had to be carried to bed by two servants. In the following night he had an attack of partial paralysis, from which he did not rally. During his illness he said to his friend, Mr. Combe, “If I had strength enough to hold a pen, I would write how easy and pleasant a thing it is to die.” His brother John was admitted to see and attend him on his deathbed, and no hint of disagreement on these occasions is given. William Hunter died on the 30th March 1783, in his sixty-fifth year, and was buried at St. James’s Church, Piccadilly.

William Hunter was of an elegant figure, slender, and rather below the middle height. The portrait of him by Sir Joshua Reynolds adorns the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow. An unfinished painting by Zoffany represents him in the attitude of lecturing on the muscles at the Royal Academy, surrounded by academicians. Hunter’s portrait is the only completed part. It was presented to the College of Physicians by Mr. Bransby Cooper in 1829.

We hear of no matrimonial projects at any time on William Hunter’s part. He was wedded to his museum, his profession, his lectures. He lived a frugal life, eating little food, and that plainly prepared; rising early, and being always at work. When he invited friends to dine with him, he seldom provided more than two courses, and he often said, “A man who cannot dine on one dish deserves to have no dinner.” A single glass of wine was handed after dinner to each guest. Some accused him of parsimony. The truth is that he did not relish the amusements and luxuries in which most people indulge, but he was by no means parsimonious as to the pursuits in which he found real pleasure. His biographer, Dr. Foart Simmons, says: “There was something very engaging in his manner and address, and he had such an appearance of attention to his patients when he was making his inquiries as could hardly fail to conciliate their confidence and esteem. In consultation with his medical brethren, he delivered his opinions with diffidence and candour. In familiar conversation he was cheerful and unassuming. All who knew him allow that he possessed an excellent understanding, great readiness of perception, a good memory, and a sound judgment.”

Dr. Hunter made no bequest to his brother John; but he knew that the latter was well established and successful. Still, his bequest of the family estate at Long Calderwood to his nephew, Dr. Baillie, appears not to have been altogether satisfactory to the latter, who handed it over to his uncle John. Dr. Hunter left an annuity of £100 to his sister, Mrs. Baillie, for life, and £2000 to each of her daughters. Dr. Baillie was his residuary legatee.

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The name of JOHN HUNTER recalls the glories of a great medical school, the labours of an indefatigable dissector, the skill of a brilliant operating surgeon, and the formation of the noblest of the Hunterian museums, that of Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, the richest heritage of the London College of Surgeons. The youngest son of the same parents as William Hunter, John was the child of his father’s old age, the latter approaching seventy at John’s birth on February 13th, 1728. The father died when John was ten years old, and his mother appears to have been extremely indulgent to her youngest child, and so little controlled his desires for amusements that he left the local grammar-school almost destitute of classical knowledge, which formed, of course, the staple instruction there imparted. The imperfection of his general early education was a painful drawback to John Hunter all his life.

There is no doubt that when about seventeen John went to Glasgow on a visit to his sister, Mrs. Buchanan, whose husband, a cabinet-maker, was failing to get on in business, owing to his musical and social qualities. How far John took part in the business is not recorded, but it is likely that he owed much of his mechanical skill to what he learnt at the shop, which seemed to stick to him much more closely than any book-learning. Finding his efforts to relieve his sister from her difficulties ineffectual, he returned home to Long Calderwood. Mrs. Buchanan died in 1749.

We have extremely little knowledge of the workings of John Hunter’s mind in his youth, or how far he was conscious of the great talents that were awaiting the appropriate incentive. His being much given to country amusements is all that we know. At length he tired of having no profession, and his brother William’s success attracted him to London. He begged that he might pay a visit to him, and be his assistant in anatomy, if possible. The request being acceded to, John arrived in London in September 1748, was at once set to work upon a dissection of the muscles of the arm to illustrate his brother’s lectures, and succeeded beyond expectation. He was now established in his brother’s dissecting-room in the winter, and in the summer attended Chelsea Hospital under Cheselden. It was evident that John had found an occupation suited to his capabilities, and in his second season he was placed in full charge of the pupils in the dissecting-room, while Dr. Hunter almost confined himself to his lectures. In 1751 John became a pupil at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, where Percival Pott was then a leading surgeon. In 1754 he was entered as a surgeon’s pupil at St. George’s Hospital, where a chance of a surgeoncy was more likely than at St. Bartholomew’s. In 1756 he was for some months house-surgeon at St. George’s.

Between these two last dates he became temporarily resident at Oxford, where his name was put down at St. Mary’s Hall, June 5, 1755. Probably the idea was that he should become a physician, taking an Oxford degree in medicine; but he was in no humour “to stuff Latin and Greek at the University;” and he never conquered his aversion to classics. Long afterwards he wrote: “Jesse Foot[12] accuses me of not understanding the dead languages; but I could teach him that on the dead body which he never knew in any language dead or living.” The last entry of charges for battels against John’s name in the buttery-book of St. Mary’s Hall occurs on July 25, 1755, so that he probably resided less than two months. His name was kept on the books, however, till December 10, 1756.

The only variation we hear of in his constant round of work was a visit John paid to his home in 1752. In 1755 John was admitted to a certain degree of partnership in Dr. Hunter’s lectures; besides undertaking a definite part of the course, he was to supply his brother’s place when absent on professional engagements. This was a serious source of discomfort; the younger Hunter’s defective education here became prominent. We may take a description of his style of lecturing at a later period from his avowed enemy, Foot, but it will be well to deduct one half from it as the product of animosity. “In the beginning, these lectures were written on detached pieces of paper; and such was the natural confusion of his mind, that he would be frequently found incapable of explaining his own opinions, from his notes; and after having in vain tried to recall the transitory ideas, now no longer floating in the mind, nor obedient to the will—after having in vain rubbed up his face, and shut his eyes, to invite disobedient recollection—he would throw the subject by, and take up another.”

Meanwhile, passing laborious days in the dissecting-room, John was becoming a more perfect anatomist than his brother, and began making discoveries on his own account, some of which William demurred to at first, but usually accepted and brought forward in his lectures, giving John credit for them. Among other discoveries of this time may be mentioned that of the ramifications of the nerves of smell in the nose, the unravelling of branches of the fifth nerve, previously unknown, the tracing of the arteries in the gravid uterus, and the existence of lymphatic vessels in birds. Other discoveries made by John Hunter are described in William Hunter’s Medical Commentaries. But it soon appeared that the younger brother felt he did not receive a due share of praise and acknowledgment of his labours, while the elder considered every discovery made in his dissecting-room as more or less his property. John continued to dissect “with an ardour and perseverance of which there is hardly any example. His labours were so useful to his brother’s collection, and so gratifying to his disposition, that although in many other respects they did not agree, this simple tie kept them together for many years” (Sir E. Home).

John gradually became led into the study of comparative anatomy, from finding that structures which were complex in the human subject were simpler in animals, or different in plan, in both cases throwing light on human anatomy and physiology. Thus he made dissections of all the commoner animals, and always preserved the parts which interested him. He soon passed beyond the ordinary range, and made acquaintance with the keeper of the Tower menagerie, that he might obtain the bodies of such animals as died there. Similarly he even would purchase animals when alive, from travelling showmen, simply requiring them to bring him their bodies whenever they happened to die. He bought all rare animals that came in his way: others were presented to him by friends, and thus an ample supply of material was secured.

There is some obscurity about the reasons which induced the younger brother in 1760 to accept an appointment as staff-surgeon in the army, joining the expedition to Belleisle in 1761. There is not much doubt, however, that his health had suffered, and that a foreign voyage and residence were calculated to restore him. In 1762 he was employed with the army in Portugal, and in this experience laid the foundation of his knowledge of military surgery. During this expedition he neglected no opportunity of forwarding his studies in comparative anatomy and physiology. Thus when at Belleisle, in order to discover whether animals in a state of hibernation could digest food, he introduced worms and pieces of meat into the stomachs of lizards, and kept them under observation in a cool place. He found the substances so introduced remained perfectly undigested. So in 1762, near Lisbon, he tested the hearing of fishes by observing the effect of the report of a gun upon the inhabitants of a nobleman’s fish-pond.

Retiring from the army after the peace of 1763, John Hunter found his place in his brother’s dissecting-room occupied by Mr. Hewson, a most capable dissector and lecturer. Hence he had no option but to depend on his own exertions, and he started in London practice as a surgeon in Golden Square. He found that practice came but slowly, and formed a class for the study of anatomy and practical surgery to add to his income. This, too, never proved nearly so remunerative as his brother’s lectures, owing to John’s defects of style and expression already mentioned. His success in practice was also retarded by his refusal or failure to employ any of the arts or tact needed to gain personal popularity. Although he was a good convivial companion, at any rate in his earlier days, any festive enjoyment was always subordinated to his zeal for a new specimen or a rare case, from which he could learn something. He would take any trouble, or go any distance, with these ends in view; while his feeling about an ordinary case may be gathered from a remark to his attached friend, Lynn, as he laid aside his dissecting instruments—“Well, Lynn, I must go and earn this d——d guinea, or I shall be sure to want it to-morrow.” Mere fashionableness Hunter could not tolerate. Dr. Garthshore, a physician of the old school, always formal, polite, and well dressed, accosting him one day in his dissecting-room with his usual _empressement_, “My d-e-a-r John Hunter,”—was astonished to hear the mocking reply, “My d-e-a-r Tom Fool.” The busy dissector was not likely to value highly the formalities of the courtly doctor, who as a contemporary remarks, “occasionally looked in, wound up his watch, and fell asleep.”

Finding his collection of live animals grow beyond his means of providing for them in town, Hunter purchased a considerable piece of ground at Earl’s Court, then about two miles outside London, and built upon it a house with a lawn behind it, upon and around which he kept a collection of curious variety, and sometimes under comparatively slight control, in order that their habits might the more readily be watched. On one occasion two leopards got loose, and one was scaling the boundary wall, while the other was engaged in combat with dogs, when Mr. Hunter, unarmed, went out and seized them both and replaced them in their outhouse; an act of courage which, when it was over, nearly caused him to faint.

In 1767 an accident by which Mr. Hunter ruptured his tendo Achillis, whether while dancing, or in getting up from the dissecting-table after being cramped by long sitting, is not certain, occasioned him to study carefully the process by which ruptured tendons are healed. His method of treating himself was to keep the heel raised, and to compress the muscle gently with a roller, thus preventing any spasmodic contraction. He divided the same tendon in several dogs, killing them subsequently at different periods to examine the progress and nature of the repair; and his experiments and specimens were the origin of the present practice of cutting through tendons for the relief of distorted and contracted joints.

In the same year, 1767, Mr. Hunter was elected into the Royal Society, before his brother—an evidence that his eager investigations were already making him well known to men of inquiring minds. At a later period he was one of the originators of meetings at a coffee-house to discuss papers before their submission to the Society generally. In 1768 he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and in the same year, supported by his brother’s interest, he was elected surgeon to St. George’s Hospital by 114 to 42 votes. He was now in a position in which more patients were at his disposal for experimental or novel modes of treatment, and in which he could take resident pupils on advantageous terms. In 1770 his brother’s removal to his new premises in Great Windmill Street, led to John’s transfer to his brother’s late house in Jermyn Street, where he found much more ample accommodation for his work than he had hitherto possessed. Here among his earliest pupils was Dr. Jenner, who was an enthusiastic disciple, and whom Mr. Hunter would gladly have permanently associated with him. He kept up a continual and intimate correspondence with him throughout life, often asking Dr. Jenner for information on questions of natural history.

Soon after his removal to Jermyn Street, namely, in July 1771, Mr. Hunter married Anne, eldest daughter of Mr. Robert Home, an army surgeon, father of his subsequent pupil and associate, Sir Everard Home. He had been engaged to Miss Home for some years, but financial reasons had hitherto postponed the marriage. Mrs. Hunter had artistic, literary, and musical tastes, which to some extent, by their expense, trenched on her husband’s scientific objects. She is remembered as the author of the words of a number of Haydn’s English canzonets, including the celebrated one, “My mother bids me bind my hair.” Mr. Hunter sometimes found that his wife’s friends were too fashionable or frivolous for his taste, and occasionally his irritation got the better of his manners. It is related that once, returning late in the evening after a wearisome day’s work, he unexpectedly found his drawing-room filled with gay company, walked straight into the room, and addressed the assembly in these terms: “I knew nothing of this kick-up, and I ought to have been informed of it beforehand; but as I am now returned home to study, I hope the present company will now retire:” a hope speedily realised. Hunter much preferred the weekly social assemblies at which his scientific friends were welcomed, and where the conversation was pointed and informing. Still there is no ground for reflecting on the general happiness of Mr. Hunter’s married life. Of his two children who survived infancy, he often said that if he had been allowed to bespeak a pair of children, they should have been those with which Providence had favoured him. His wife survived him till 1821, when she died in her 79th year.

Early in 1771 Mr. Hunter published his first work of any magnitude, the first part of his “Treatise on the Natural History of the Human Teeth,” which long continued a standard work, largely appropriated by subsequent writers. The second part, treating of the diseases of the teeth, did not appear till 1778. In 1772 he made his mark at the Royal Society by his celebrated paper on the digestion of the stomach after death, which he attributed to the action of the gastric juice upon the dead tissues. His stores of knowledge and learning were afterwards made evident by many papers in the “Philosophical Transactions,” of which the principal were those on the torpedo (1773), on the air receptacles of birds, and on the Gillaroo trout, 1774; the production of heat by animals and vegetables, 1775; the recovery of persons apparently drowned, 1776; the communication of smallpox to the fœtus in utero, 1780; the organ of hearing in fishes, 1782; the specific identity of the wolf, jackal, and dog, and on the structure and economy of whales, 1787; observations on bees, 1793; and on some remarkable caves in Bayreuth, and fossil bones found therein, 1794. The titles of these papers, however, convey but a very imperfect idea of the wide range of subjects treated in them. When he described a structure, he made it the starting-point of a dissertation, in the course of which he brought to bear all his vast stores of knowledge to establish general principles or to illustrate important points of physiology.

In the autumn of 1772 his brother-in-law, Everard Home, became his pupil. He describes Hunter’s museum at this time as already having an imposing magnitude. All the best rooms in the house were devoted to it, and it was continually being enlarged by his unremitting toil. From six, or earlier, till nine, when he breakfasted, Hunter dissected; after breakfast till twelve he was at home to patients. Punctuality he observed to a fault. He would leave patients at home in order to start punctually to his outside consultations, “for,” said he, “these people can take their chance another day, and I have no right to waste the valuable time of other practitioners by keeping them waiting for me.” He kept one book at home in which to enter these, and had an exact copy of it always in his waistcoat pocket: thus those at home by referring to the book could invariably find him. Once his former pupil, Cline, having to meet Hunter in consultation, made a second arrangement, unknown to Hunter, to take him to see another patient of his immediately after. Hunter’s outburst of passion at this unjustifiable disturbance of his arrangements for the afternoon was with difficulty appeased. His punctuality at dinner, at four, was equally settled, but he strictly ordered that dinner should be served whether he were at home or not. For many years he drank no wine, and sat but a short time at table, except when he had company; but he nevertheless pressed the guests to disregard his example. “Come, fellow,” said he, in his usual blunt way, to Mr., afterwards Sir William, Blizard, “why don’t you drink your wine?” The guest pleaded in excuse a whitlow, which caused him much pain. Hunter would not allow the validity of the plea, but continued to urge him and ridicule his excuse. “Come, come, John,” said Mrs. Hunter, “you will please to remember that you were delirious for two days when you had a boil on your finger some time ago.” This turned the laugh against Hunter, who ceased to importune his guest.

In addition to his own pre-eminent industry, Hunter was not without the most important talent of making others’ labours advance his ends. Thus for fourteen years he employed a very capable young artist named Bell, keeping him resident in his house, occupied in making drawings, and anatomical preparations, and generally in museum work. Bell was frequently called in also to act as Hunter’s amanuensis. After he left Mr. Hunter, in 1789, he became an assistant-surgeon under the East India Company, settling at Bencoolen, where his zoological studies were continued with much promise of great achievement; but, unfortunately for science, he died of fever in 1792.

In 1772 Hunter began to lecture on the theory and practice of surgery, at first to his pupils and a few friends admitted gratuitously, but afterwards on payment of a fee of four guineas. This may be accounted the first introduction into this country, perhaps to any, of the idea of principles of surgery, and the necessity of a rational explanation of processes of repair, and of a scientific basis for operations. Instead of a study of anatomy alone being required by a surgeon, he elevated pathology into its true position, and brought in all the aids with which physiology and comparative anatomy could at that time illuminate the subject. But in advance of any of these aids was his own clear insight, which penetrated to the core of a question, and often brought out truth which he could not himself explain, or only imperfectly. He never overcame his difficulty in lecturing; at the commencement of each course he always composed himself by a draught of laudanum. His lectures, delivered on alternate evenings from October to April, were given from seven to eight o’clock. His class was usually comparatively small, never exceeding thirty; but the quality of his audience was good, as may be gathered from its having included Astley Cooper, Cline, Abernethy, Carlisle, Chevalier, and Macartney. He never became an attractive lecturer; from deficiency in extempore speaking, he was compelled to read his lectures, and seldom raised his eyes from his manuscript. His manner was frequently ungraceful, but his matter was for the most part highly intelligible and luminous to those of his hearers who came prepared by thought and attainments to be really edified, while he was often unintelligible to those who had no practice in thinking for themselves and desired to keep clear of that odious pain. In his lectures he was equally unsparing towards his own and others’ errors, and he never clung to his own past opinions. “Never ask me,” he replied to a question, “what I have said or what I have written; but if you will ask me what my present opinions are, I will tell you.”

The following extract from Ottley[13] gives an interesting view of Hunter’s after-dinner habits. “After dinner he was accustomed to sleep for about an hour, and his evenings were spent either in preparing or delivering lectures, in dictating to an amanuensis the records of particular cases, of which he kept a regular entry, or in a similar manner committing to paper the substance of any work on which he chanced to be engaged. When employed in the latter way, Mr. Bell and he used to retire to the study, the former carrying with him from the museum such preparations as related to the subject on which Hunter was engaged: these were placed on the table before him, and at the other end sat Mr. Bell, writing from Hunter’s dictation. The manuscript was then looked over, and the grammatical blunders, for Bell was an uneducated man, corrected by Hunter. At twelve the family went to bed, and the butler, before retiring to rest, used to bring in a fresh Argand lamp, by the light of which Hunter continued his labours until one or two in the morning, or even later in winter. Thus he left only about four hours for sleep, which, with the hour after dinner, was all the time that he devoted to the refreshment of his body. He had no home amusements for the relaxation of his mind, and the only indulgence of this kind he enjoyed consisted in an evening’s ramble amongst the various denizens of earth and air which he had congregated at Earl’s Court.”

In January 1776 Mr. Hunter attained a court position, being appointed surgeon-extraordinary to the king. In the same year he became interested in the efforts of the Humane Society, and at its request drew up a paper for the Royal Society on the recovery of the apparently-drowned. Herein he makes a just distinction between absolute death and suspended animation, illustrates different modes of dying, and describes many signs of life and death. This year was also the first in which he delivered the Croonian lecture to the Royal Society, on muscular motion, a subject which he continued in successive years till 1782 (omitting 1777); but the lectures were never published, being, he said, too incomplete.

In the year 1773 Mr. Hunter suffered the first open onset of the disease which occasioned him such acute pain and distress for many years, in an attack of spasm accompanied by cessation of the heart’s action apparently for three quarters of an hour. During the attack, however, sensation and voluntary actions were kept up, and he was able to continue respiring by voluntary effort. In the next few years the attacks were somewhat rare; but from 1783 onwards he was subject to severe angina pectoris whenever mentally agitated. In 1777 a constant giddiness or vertigo seized him on account of his being called upon to pay a large sum of money for a friend for whom he had become security, at a time when it was exceedingly inconvenient to do so. This illness led him to visit Bath in the autumn, leaving Mr. Bell and Mr. Home to catalogue his museum. At Bath Dr. Jenner visited him and was surprised at his altered appearance, and here first diagnosed his case as dependent upon an organic affection of the heart: but he did not tell Hunter his diagnosis, fearing an injurious effect. Returning to town, and soon recovering his usual health and vigour, Mr. Hunter published in 1778 the second part of his Treatise on the Teeth, dealing with their diseases. In 1779 a paper contributed to the Royal Society on the hermaphrodite black cattle or free martin gave him occasion to describe hermaphroditism in general. In 1780 occurred the unfortunate controversy with his brother, in regard to the discovery of the utero-placental circulation, to which we have already referred. The estrangement which followed was extreme, and protracted till the elder brother lay on his deathbed. After his brother’s death, however, which occurred just at the conclusion of John Hunter’s course of lectures, when he had finished his lecture, he still seemed to have more to say; and at length, appearing as if he had just recollected something, he began, “Ho! gentlemen, one thing more: I need not remind you of ——: you all know the loss anatomy has lately sustained.” He was obliged to pause and turn his face from his hearers. At length recovering himself, he stated that Mr. Cruickshank would occupy the place of Dr. Hunter. This, and a few words more, were not spoken without great emotion, nor with dry eyes. The scene was so pathetic, that a general sympathy pervaded the class; and though all had been preparing to leave, they stood or sat motionless for several minutes.

The eagerness with which Mr. Hunter sought and appropriated all rarities is amusingly illustrated by his own remarks to Dr. Clarke, who had a preparation illustrating extra-uterine pregnancy, which Mr. Hunter often viewed with longing eyes. “Come, Doctor,” said he, “I positively must have that preparation.” “No, John Hunter,” was the reply, “you positively shall not.” “You will not give it me, then?” “No.” “Will you sell it?” “No.” “Well, then, take care I don’t meet you with it in some dark lane at night, for if I do, I’ll murder you to get it.” It is reported that a specimen which remains one of the most valued in the Hunterian Museum cost Mr. Hunter no less than £500 in 1783, namely, the skeleton of O’Brien, the Irish giant, seven feet seven inches high. It appears that O’Brien had heard of and dreaded the scalpel of the famous dissector, and took special precautions to frustrate his ends. He made an Irish league with several compatriots that his body should be taken to sea, and securely sunk in deep water; but Mr. Hunter, more subtle than the giant, had made a big bargain with the undertaker, who arranged that during the funeral progress towards the sea the coffin should be locked up in a barn while its guardians were drinking at a tavern. The corpse was speedily extracted, and a sufficient weight of stones substituted; and Hunter soon rejoiced in the possession of his prize, which he drove to Earl’s Court in his own carriage, and quickly converted into a skeleton.

In 1781 Mr. Hunter was called by the defence as a witness in the trial of Captain Donellan at Warwick Assizes for the murder of his brother-in-law, Sir Theodosius Boughton. In his evidence Mr. Hunter gave all that could justly be deduced from the facts known to him, but refused to speak positively as to the cause of death. Under cross-examination he became confused and hesitating, as was certain to be the case. This rather aroused the wrath of Mr. Justice Buller, who in his charge said, “I can hardly say what his opinion is, for he does not seem to have formed any opinion at all of the matter.” But Hunter’s caution was undoubtedly justifiable.

In 1783 the lease of the Jermyn Street house expired, and finding it difficult to accommodate his museum in any premises he could obtain, Mr. Hunter purchased the remainder of the lease, extending to twenty-four years only, of a house on the east side of Leicester Square, with ground extending on the rear to Castle Street, where there was a second smaller house. On the vacant ground Mr. Hunter determined to build a museum for his collection, including a large upper room fifty-two feet by twenty-eight, lighted from above, and having a gallery running round it. A lecture-room and other rooms were beneath. By the spring of 1785 this considerable undertaking was complete, absorbing all Hunter’s spare cash and costing him more than £3,000. But the museum, which was removed to it in April 1785, had by 1782 cost him £10,000 in addition to valuable presents, so that it cannot be said that the casket cost more than the jewels although being on so short a lease it was doubtless expensive. The museum in its new home became continually more celebrated, and was visited by many foreign anatomists of distinction, including Blumenbach, Camper, Scarpa, and Poli. At this period Hunter was at the height of his career; his mind and body were in full vigour; “his hands,” says Home, “were capable of performing whatever was suggested by his mind; and his judgment was matured by former experience.” There were diverse opinions about his skill as an operator, however; Astley Cooper did not consider him especially dexterous or elegant. Nevertheless his anatomical knowledge and great experience stood him in good stead, and he was almost always successful in completing his operations. It must be recollected, however, that special importance was, in pre-chloroform days, attached to speed, and in this Hunter did not excel. Indeed, to him, operating was a distasteful element in a surgeon’s curative efforts. “To perform an operation,” he would say, “is to mutilate a patient we cannot cure; it should therefore be considered as an acknowledgment of the imperfection of our art.”

The year of greatest success, however, was marked by a period of grave illness, with attacks of violent spasms of the heart, followed by syncope. These recurred on occasions of extra exertion, anxiety of mind, fits of temper, or even the fear lest an animal which he wished to secure might escape before a gun could be brought to shoot it. To this year (1785) we are indebted for the celebrated portrait of Hunter by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in the possession of the Royal College of Surgeons. He was a bad sitter, but Reynolds, dissatisfied with his progress, one day was gratified by seeing Hunter in deep reverie, with his head supported by his left hand. He at once turned his canvas upside down, and began to record that life-like face, which shows Hunter the philosopher in the true profundity of his nature. Sharp engraved this portrait, and it was one of his greatest successes.

The year 1785 was that in which Hunter first tied the femoral artery in a case of popliteal aneurism, and thus initiated one of the greatest modern improvements in surgery, relying upon the enlargement of the smaller communicating or collateral vessels to make up for the cessation of circulation through the principal vessel. This appears to have been suggested to him by an experiment on the mode of growth of deer’s antlers. Having been granted by the king the privilege of experimenting with the deer in Richmond Park, he tied one of the external carotid arteries supplying (_inter alia_) one of the half-grown antlers. The antler became cold, but after a week or two Hunter, to his astonishment, found that it had again become warm and was growing again. On a _post mortem_ examination he discovered that this continued growth was due to the enlargement of small branches of the carotid above and below the wound, to an extent sufficient to restore the blood-supply in the antler. And by a stroke of genius Hunter saw that a similar process might be expected to occur in cases of aneurism, and supersede the then generally fatal methods of operating by means of amputation, or by directly evacuating the sac of the aneurism. The fourth patient Hunter performed the new operation upon lived for fifty years; a specimen illustrating the case is preserved in the Hunterian Museum.

In 1786, on the death of Middleton, Hunter received the appointment of deputy surgeon-general to the army; becoming in 1790, on the death of Mr. Adair, surgeon-general and inspector of hospitals. In 1786 he published his long-deferred work on the Venereal Disease, which, though printed and sold in his own house, met with a rapid sale, and proved a very valuable work. In the same year he collected a large number of his papers contributed to the Royal Society, together with others not previously published, into a quarto volume entitled, “Observations on certain Parts of the Animal Œconomy,” and thus placed his researches in imposing bulk before the general public. The Copley Medal of the Royal Society was awarded to Hunter in 1787 for his discoveries in natural history.