| John Hunter | |
|---|---|
Portrait after Sir Joshua Reynolds in the Royal College of Surgeons. The skeleton of the Irish giant Charles Byrne is in the background. |
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| Born | 13 February 1728 Long Calderwood, East Kilbride, Scotland |
| Died | 16 October 1793 (aged 65) |
| Education | St. Bartholomew's Hospital |
| Known for | Scientific method in medicine Many discoveries in surgery & medicine |
| Profession | Surgeon |
| Institutions | St. George's Hospital |
| Research | Dentistry, gunshot wounds, venereal diseases, digestion, child development, foetal development, lymphatic system |
John Hunter FRS (13 February 1728 – 16 October 1793) was a Scottish surgeon regarded as one of the most distinguished scientists and surgeons of his day. He was an early advocate of careful observation and scientific method in medicine. The Hunterian Society of London was named in his honour. He was the husband of Anne Hunter.
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Hunter was born at Long Calderwood, now part of East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, Scotland the youngest of ten children. Three of these children had died of illness before John Hunter was born. One of these three had been named John Hunter also. An elder brother was William Hunter, the anatomist. As a youth, John showed little talent, and helped his brother-in-law as a cabinet-maker.
In 1771 he married Anne Home, daughter of Robert Boyne Home and sister of Sir Everard Home. They had four children, two of whom died before the age of 5 and one of whom, Agnes (their fourth child), married General Sir James Campbell of Inverneill.
His death in 1793 followed a heart attack during an argument at St George's Hospital over the admission of students.
When nearly 21 he visited William in London, where his brother had become an admired teacher of anatomy. John started as his assistant in dissections (1748), and was soon running the practical classes on his own.[1]
Hunter studied under William Cheselden at Chelsea Hospital and Percival Pott at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. After qualifying he became Assistant Surgeon (house surgeon) at St George's Hospital (1756) and Surgeon (1768). He was commissioned as an Army surgeon in 1760 and was staff surgeon on expedition to Belle Île in 1761, and served in 1762 with the British Army in the expedition to Portugal.[2]
Hunter was an excellent anatomist; his knowledge and skill as a surgeon was based on sound anatomical background. Among his numerous contributions to medical science are:
After years of hard work he set up his own anatomy school in London in 1764 and started in private surgical practice. His recognition rose in 1767 when he was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society and in 1768 he was appointed as surgeon to St. George's Hospital. Later he became a member of the Company of Surgeons. In 1776 he was appointed surgeon to King George III; in 1786 he was appointed deputy surgeon to the British Army and in 1789 he was made Surgeon General.
In 1783 Hunter moved to a large house in Leicester Square, where today there stands a statue to him. The space allowed him to arrange his collection of nearly 14,000 preparations of over 500 species of plants and animals into a teaching museum.
Also in 1783 he acquired the skeleton of the 7' 7" Irish giant Charles Byrne against Byrne's clear deathbed wishes – he asked to be buried at sea. Hunter bribed a member of the funeral party (possibly for £500) and filled the coffin with rocks at an overnight stop, then subsequently published a scientific description of the anatomy and skeleton. The skeleton today is in the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons in London.[3]
In 1799 the government purchased Hunter's collection of papers and specimens, which it presented to the Company of Surgeons.
It has recently been alleged that Hunter's brother William, and his brother's former tutor William Smellie, were responsible for the deaths of many women whose corpses were used for their studies on pregnancy.[4][5] John is alleged to have been connected in some way to these murders.[6] However, persons who have studied life in 18th-century London agree that the number of gravid women who died in London during the years of Hunter's and Smellie's work was not particularly high for that locality and time; the prevalence of pre-eclampsia, a common condition affecting ten percent of all pregnancies and one easily treated today, but for which there was no treatment in Hunter's time, would more than suffice to explain a mortality rate that seems suspiciously high to 21st-century readers.[7] [8] In The Anatomy of the Gravid Uterus Exhibited in Figures, published in 1774, Hunter provides case histories for at least four of the subjects illustrated.
Hunter's character has been discussed by biographers:
In general, he had a reputation as a blunt speaker with an argumentative nature.
Hunter was the basis for the character "Jack Tearguts" in William Blake's unfinished satirical novel, An Island in the Moon. He is a principal character in Hilary Mantel's 1998 novel, The Giant, O'Brien.
He was an inspiration for Doctor Dolittle, [5], [6]
A bust of John Hunter stands on a pedestal outside the main entrance to St George's Hospital in Tooting, South London, along with a lion and unicorn taken from the original Hyde Park Corner building. There is also a bust of him in Leicester Square in London's West End and in the South West corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields.
The John Hunter Hospital, the largest hospital in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, and principal teaching hospital of the University of Newcastle, is named after Hunter (as well as two other historically significant John Hunters).
In 1791, when Joseph Haydn was visiting London for a series of concerts, Hunter offered to perform an operation for the removal of a large nasal polyp which was troubling the great Austrian composer. According to one account, "Haydn, on his visit to London in 1791, [wrote] folksong arrangements, including The Ash Grove, set to words by Mrs Hunter. Haydn had designs on Mrs Hunter. Her husband ... had designs on Haydn’s famous nasal polyp. Both were refused."[11]
Hunter claimed that originally the Negroid race was White at birth, he claimed that over time because of the sun, they turned black. Hunter also claimed that blisters and burns would likely to turn white on a Negro, which he believed was evidence that the Negros original ancestors were white.[12]
At the time Hunter was considered the authority on venereal diseases. He thought that gonorrhea and syphilis were caused by a single pathogen. Living in an age when physicians frequently experimented on themselves, he inoculated himself with gonorrhea, using a needle that was unknowingly contaminated with syphilis. When he contracted both syphilis and gonorrhea, he claimed it proved his erroneous theory that there was only one venereal disease. He championed its treatment with mercury and cauterization. He included his findings in his Treatise on the Venereal Disease, first issued in 1786. Because of Hunter’s reputation, knowledge concerning the true nature of gonorrhea and syphilis was retarded, and it was not until 51 years later that his theory was proved to be wrong.[13]
Robert Chamber's "Book of Days" (1868) gives an alternate birth date of July 14.