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William Hunter
(1718-1783) must always be remembered as one of the greatest physicians
and anatomists of the eighteenth century, and particularly as the first
great teacher of anatomy in England; but his fame has been somewhat overshadowed
by that of his younger brother John.
Hunter had been intended and educated for
the Church, but on the advice of the surgeon William
Cullen he turned his attention to the study of medicine. His first
attempt at teaching was in 1746, when he delivered a series of lectures
on surgery for the Society of Naval Practitioners. These lectures proved
so interesting and instructive that he was at once invited to give others,
and his reputation as a lecturer was soon established. He was a natural
orator and story-teller, and he combined with these attractive qualities
that of thoroughness and clearness in demonstrations, and although his
lectures were two hours long he made them so full of interest that his
pupils seldom tired of listening. He believed that he could do greater
good to the world by "publicly teaching his art than by practising it,"
and even during the last few days of his life, when he was so weak that
his friends remonstrated against it, he continued his teaching, fainting
from exhaustion at the end of his last lecture, which preceded his death
by only a few days.
For many years it was Hunter's ambition
to establish a museum where the study of anatomy, surgery, and medicine
might be advanced, and in 1765 he asked for a grant of a plot of ground
for this purpose, offering to spend seven thousand pounds on its, erection
besides endowing it with a professorship of anatomy. Not being able to
obtain this grant, however, he built a house, in which were lecture and
dissecting rooms, and his museum. In this museum were anatomical preparations,
coins, minerals, and natural-history specimens.
Hunter's weakness was his love of controversy
and his resentment of contradiction. This brought him into strained relations
with many of the leading physicians of his time, notably his own brother
John, who himself was probably not entirely free from blame in the matter.
Hunter is said to have excused his own irritability on the grounds that
being an anatomist, and accustomed to "the passive submission of dead bodies,"
contradictions became the more unbearable. Many of the physiological researches
begun by him were carried on and perfected by his more famous brother,
particularly his investigations of the capillaries, but he added much to
the anatomical knowledge of several structures of the body, notably as
to the structure of cartilages and joints. |
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