JOHN HUNTER.*
IN his Life of John Hunter Mr. Stephen Paget makes a very important contribution to the series of biographies which is now being published under the title of "Masters of Medicine," and, what is of more concern to the general reader, has produced a book of more than ordinary interest apart from its scientific value. The chief difficulty in dealing with the life of a great doctor lies in giving due prominence to its scientific aspect, and avoiding at the same time the use of terms and allusions which are only intelligible to the doctors' profession. It is a difficulty which the author has surmounted with conspicuous success, and the result is a book that should be quite as interesting to the general public as it is valuable to the expert. For, apart from his place as a "Master of Medicine," John Hunter is worthy of study as a character of no common force and originality. Sir James Paget, who furnishes a short introduction to Mr. Paget's book, assigns Hunter's great influence in the promo- tion of medicine and surgery to the degree in which he intro- duced the exercise of the observant scientific mind into their study and practice. To him, more than any other man, is due the helpful alliance of comparative anatomy and pathology, which, combined with a patient course of observation and experiment, has done so much to advance the arts of surgery and medicine during the last century. The text of his teaching can best be given in his own words to his pupils,—" Don't think, try ; be patient, be accurate." Theories are of ex- cellent use for suggesting the line of observation, but practice should be based upon that observation, accurately and scien- tifically carried out, and not upon the theories themselves. Theoretically it was, no doubt, an excellent practice to bleed a patient profusely for nearly every complaint ; but the theory happened to be an incorrect one. Had Hunter's predecessors only tested this and other theories by careful and scientific experiment, their practice of medicine would have sometimes been less deadly in its results.
It is curious to note that the true method of acquiring knowledge seems to have revealed itself to Hunter almost by accident. He was a born naturalist. '• When I was a boy," he said of himself, " I wanted to know all about the clouds and the grasses, and why the leaves changed colour in the autumn; I watched the ants, bees, birds, tadpoles, and caddis- worms ; I pestered people with questions about what nobody knew or cared anything about." He had a passion for collecting and investigating which he would have certainly indulged whatever line of life be had followed. Chance, more than any aptitude or special desire, made him a doctor, and it was not long before he came to study his profession in the light of his favourite pursuit. The help and example of his brother, William Hunter, speedily converted this idle lover of Nature into a hard-working London surgeon. The first steps of a medical career in 1750 were neither easy nor pleasant, and the two brothers fought a hard fight before they won a position for themselves in the London world. Upon John Hunter fell the greater burden of the fray. It was he who did the rough work, who lived in the unwholesome atmosphere of the dissecting-room, and was forced to consort with those very unsavoury traders in "subjects,"—the resurrection men. We are told that he was a great favourite with these gentry, and took no little pleasure in their company. And one gathers that there was in him a certain roughness of disposition which was destined to show itself later in some of his dealings with his colleagues. He was very plain-spoken, both to his
• John Hunter. By Stephen Paget. London: T. Fisher trnwin.
pupils and his patients, and our author quotes many good stories of a directness of speech which almost bordered on brutality. Nor was he over-scrupulous in the means he took to secure specimens for his famous collection, as is shown by his capture of the dead Irish giant. Bat it should be remembered that he honestly considered that to withhold an opportunity for useful experiment was nothing short of a crime. An eye-witness tells a story of Hunter's behaviour on one occasion when the friends of a patient refused him leave to make a post-mortem examination :-
"When he became conscious that his object was unattainable, he was standing with his back to the fire, and he put his hands in his pockets. I saw by his countenance that a storm was brewing in his mind. He gravely and calmly addressed the master of the house in the following manner, Then, sir, you will not permit the examination to be made ? It is impossible,' was the reply. = Then, sir,' said Mr. Hunter, ' I heartily hope that yourself and all your family, nay, all your friends. may die of the same disease, and that no one may be able to afford any assist- ance ; ' and so saying he departed."
However, as our author remarks, faults of temper ought not to be counted heavily against a man afflicted himself with angina. Otherwise, one might be tempted to say of Hunter that he lived in a rage, and died in a rage. There was no little cause for his anger. His whole heart and soul was in his profession ; all the money that he received—and, in spite of his generosity and carelessness of gain, he must have made a very considerable sum—was spent in furthering its science ; he worked incessantly, and though much of his work was
distasteful to him, for he had no love for lecturing or writing, he allowed no suffering of his own to abate his endeavours ; and yet everywhere his strenuous efforts in advance were baffled by the indolent indifference or ignorant hostility of his colleagues. Had he taken a more selfish interest in the pursuit of knowledge his life would have been an easier and a happier one. As it was, probably the happiest hours were those which he spent in his laboratory or
among his collections ; and the real John Hunter is better known from his letters to Jenner, about natural history, than from his constant bickerings with the leaders of medicine in his day. Mr. Paget quotes some thirty of the above- mentioned letters, which are rather amusing reading.
Knowledge of natural history was not very advanced a century ago ; and some of Hunter's experiments in that field seem somewhat peculiar. Evidently he found considerable difficulty not only in obtaining subjects for experiment, but also in keeping them alive. On one occasion he writes to Jenner :—" I put three hedgehogs in the garden, and put meat in different places for them to eat as they went along ; but they all died. Now I want to know what this is owing to ; therefore, I want you to find out their haunts, and observe, if you can, what they do : if they make a warm place for themselves ; if they have any food by them, &c." He was decidedly unfortunate in his hedgehogs, or, perhaps it should be said, the hedgehogs were unfortunate in his keeping. When the question of their board and lodging had been solved, they fell victims to their comrades in captivity. His house at Earl's Court was turned into a kind of menagerie, and that in Leicester Square became a museum of bones. His enthusiasm never waned; at the very end of his life we find him writing to a traveller about to depart for Africa, and demanding "ostrach " eggs, foal " eamelle," tame lions, cuckoos, swallows, wasps, bees, and " camelions." If not alive, then to be sent to him in spirits, for he allowed no difficulties to stand in his way, and recognised no reason why one should not bottle a camel foal.
On one occasion he equipped and despatched at the cost of some £500 a surgeon to Greenland to investigate whales,— "but the only return I received for this expense was a piece of whale's skin, with some small animals sticking upon it."
The return made to him during his lifetime for all his patient research and labours was hardly less disproportionate. However, some amends have been made by his successors since his death, and not the least useful tribute to his memory is this biography by Mr. Paget. The praise of John Hunter has been too little known outside the ranks of the great pro- fession which he so nobly served, and it is high time that humanity at large should learn the story of its benefactor. Mr. Paget's book is admirably adapted to this end, and should attract a wide circle of readers by its own merits as well as by the interest of its subject.
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