HUNTER, JOHN, the greatest name in the combined character of physiologist and surgeon that the whole annals of medicine can furnish; was b. at Long Calderwood, in Lanarkshire, in 1728, and was the youngest of 10 children. One of his brothers, William, claims a separate notice. One of his sisters, Dorothea, was married to Dr. James Baillie. professor of divinity in the university of Glasgow, and was the mother of Matthew Baillie (q.v.), and Joanna Baillie (q.v.), The fact that his father died when Hunter was only 10 years of age, and the probability that he was o'ver-indulged by his mother, explain how, at the age of 20, he could simply read and write, and was ignorant of every languagebrxrivt his own. The fame of his brother success as an anatomical lecturer, made desirous of entering into the sante profession, and he accordingly applied for and obtained the situation of assistant in the dissecting-room. His progress in anatomy and surgery was so rapid that in the second session he was able to undertake the directing of the pupils in their dissections. He studied surgery under Cheselden (the celebrated lithotomist), aL Chelsea hospital, during the summer months of 1749 and 1750; and subsequently under Pott.
In 1753 Hunter entered as a gentleman commoner at St. Mary's hall, Oxford; but finally deciding on confining himself to the practice of surgery, he entered St. George's p. hospital as surgeon's-pupil in 1754, and two years afterwards served the office of house !, surgeon. In the course of this year (1754), Hunter became a partner with his brother in time anatomical school. After 10 years' hard work in the dissecting-room his health began to give way, and in 1759 he was strongly advised to seek a more southerly climate. With this view he applied for an appointment in the army, was immediately made staff surgeon, and sent out to Belleisle, and afterwards to the Peninsula; but in 1763, peace having been proclaimed, he returned home, permanently settled in London. and with nothing but his half-pay and his own talents to support him started as a pure surgeon. For a while lie had not a great practice, and consequently devoted much time and money to comparative anatomy. He was in the habit of purchasing the bodies of animals that (lied in the tower, and in traveling menageries; and in order conveniently to carry on his anatomical and physiological inquiries, he purchased a piece of ground 'at Earl's Court, Brampton, where he built a small house, in which he made most of his researches. In 1707 he was elected a fellow of the royal society, and in the following year was appointed surgeon to St. George's hospital. This appointment led to an increase of his practice, and enabled him to take pupils, each of whom paid him 580 guineas. Jenner (q.v.) was one of the earliest of these, and always spoke of his old
.master in terms of regard and affection. In 1771 be married Miss Home, sister of Mr. (afterwards sir Everard) Home.* His practice at this time was increasing rapidly, but his income never reached £1000 a year until 1774. In 1773 he had the first attack of a disease (angina pectoris) which ultimately proved fatal, In 1776 he was appointed sur geon-extraordinary to the king.
In 1783 he determined to build a museum. The building, which was completed in 1785, consisted of an upper room for the reception of his collection, 52 ft. long by 28 wide, under which were a lecture-room, and another room which became the place of meeting of the lyceum modicum, a society established by Hunter and Fordyce. It was in Dee. of that year that he planned and carried into execution his famous operation for the cure of aneurism—that of simply tying the artery at a distance from the tumor, • and between it and the heart, thus introducing into surgery an improvement which has • been more fruitful in important results than any since Ambrose Paro's application of ligatures to divided arteries. In 1786 Hunter was appointed deputy-surgeon-general to the army; in 1787 he received the Copley medal from the royal society. Ile was now universally acknowledged, by all the younger surgeons, as the hind of his pro fession; but most of his contemporaries looked upon him as little better than an innovator and an enthusiast. He died Oct. 16, 1793, and was buried in time church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, from whence his remains were removed, in 1860, to West minster Abbey, where a suitable tablet to his memory has been erected by the council of the royal college of surgeons.
Some idea may be formed of Hunter's extreme diligence, by the fact that. his museum contained at the time of his death 10,563 specimens and preparations illus trative of human and comparative anatomy, physiology, pathology, and natural history. lie died in comparative poverty. and his collection was purchased, two years after his death, by government for £15.000, and was presented to the royal college of surgeons, by whom it has been much enlarged.
In addition to numerous papers contributed to the Transactions of the royal and other learned societies, he published the following independent worka: A Treatise on the Natural History of the DumanTeeth (part i. 1771; part ii. 1778); A Treatise on the Ven •real Disease (1784); Observations on Certain Parts of the Animal Economy (1786); and A Treatise on the Blood, Inflammation, and Gunshot Wounds (published in 1794). Mr. 'Palmer, with the literary assistance of several eminent surgical friends, published an excellent edition of The Works of John Hunter, FRS., with Notes, in 4 volumes, in 1835. To this is prefixed The Life of ,John Hunter, PIRA, by Drewry Otley, from which most of the materials of this sketch have been taken.