The Hunterian oration for the year 1907 : being the sixty-third Hunterian oration since its foundation : delivered in the theatre of the Royal College of Surgeons : On the objects of Hunter's life and the manner in which he accomplished them / by Henry T. Butlin.

  • Sir Henry Butlin, 1st Baronet
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Hunterian oration for the year 1907 : being the sixty-third Hunterian oration since its foundation : delivered in the theatre of the Royal College of Surgeons : On the objects of Hunter's life and the manner in which he accomplished them / by Henry T. Butlin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    THE HUNTEBIAN OJiATIOxY was in To many persons at this time Hunter's life must have appeared to be a gigantic faihire. He had written books and papers which few people cared to read and fewer still could understand. He had been so poor a teacher that, while Desault in Paris gathered round him 400 students, Hunter's class seldom num- bered more than twenty. He had spent all his spare time and ruined his health in making a collection which he declared had cost him £70,000, and no one thought it worth the having. Although he regarded for some years as the first surgeon London, his position had not been recognised by the State. Indeed, many members of his own profession regarded him with distrust; they thought him too subject to fancies and theories; he was changeable knew Mm to be capable of keeping lier and himself in comfort, if lie only cliose to apply himself to the work which properly belonged to him. In the same manner, Mrs. Himter mtist have been aware that her own life might have been much happier if her husband had been less devoted to his scientific stiidies, and she was probably equally con- scious of the fact that she and her children would be withoiit means after Mr. Himter's death, for his spare income was applied to the needs of his museum. Nor could it have been an easy matter to live with a man of so irritable and passionate a disposition as her husband. Nevertheless, she proved herself, in many respects, woi-thy of the position she had accepted. After Hunter's death she became com- panion to two young ladies, and continued in that humble position until her death. She appears to have had a profound belief in the genius of her hiisband, for, some time after his death, she was anxious to erect a monument to his memory in Westminster Abbey, but the fees demanded for permission to occuj)y a niche there were too extravagant for her rediiced condition, and she was forced to abandon the idea. To my mind she deserves more notice than has been taken of her, both for her own abilities and for her devotion to her husband dui-ing his life and after his death.
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