The complete works of John Hunter, F.R.S (Volume 1).

  • John Hunter
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The complete works of John Hunter, F.R.S (Volume 1). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    Dear Jenner, I received your salmon, and very fresh, and just examined enough to want another, but will wait till another season. If I was to have another, it should be one that had just spawned : I will take a cock salmon when you please. If you catch any bats, let me have some of them ; and those you try yourself, open a hole in the belly, just size enough to admit the ball; put the ball down towards the pelvis, and observe the heat there; then up towards the diaphragm, and observe the heat there ; observe the fluidity of the blood. Do all this in a cold place. Extraneous fossils are all vegetable and animal substances found in a fossil state. See if you can catch the number of pulsations and breathing in a bat without torture. If the frost is hard, see what vegetables freeze : bore holes in large trees, and see whether the sap runs out, which will show it is not frozen. 1 am afraid you have not a proper thermometer: I will send you one. Your very much obliged Servant. J. Hunter. I have not seen Dr. H., but I dare say he will be glad to have the cases. The two foregoing letters appear to have been written in Janu- ary or February. Hunter, in the multiplicity of his engagements, forgot to send the thermometer he had promised, and Jenner, after waiting for some time, began to fear lest he might in some way have offended his friend, and accordingly wrote to inquire the cause of his long silence. To this Hunter replied in the following letter, which bears the post-mark of April 12th. Dear Jenner, I can never be offended with you. The reason for not sending the ther- mometer was I entirely forgot it, but it shall be sent next week. I shall be glad to present your paper if you mean to give it to the public. The. large porpoise I would have coarsely stripped, and the bones put into a cask and sent; the young one, if not too large, put into spirits to be able to inject it. If the breasts of the old one were taken off and put into the cask among the spirits, I should like it. You will find the nipples on each side of the vulva, and the gland passes along under the skin of the belly, almost to the breast, so that it would be only preserving the belly part. Did I write to you some time ago about cuckoos ? I have forgot: if I did not, I must give you a long order. Friday night. I am, dear Jenner, ever yours, J. Hunter. I was at my club last night, and not coming home till twelve is the reason I did not write. Dear Jenner, [Post-mark, April 16^.] I have received (your fish, as also your letter; for both I thank you. It came quite fresh, and it is under dissection and drawing. The bubbies of this are as flat as a pancake, but I have injected the ducts. Was the milk sweet ? Could you save some of it? if but two drops, to see if it grows sour. Try it with the syrup of violets. Are the breasts demolished ? Are the kidneys demolished? If not, could you send them ? I will leave it to you what is to be done at present with the bones; either send them as they are, or steep them in water till the flesh rots off. If you could, send me the stomach and a piece of intestine, if the largo one was different from the small; but if it had the same head, then you need not send them, as the present informs me of the class. I have got the thermometer, but let me know to whose care I am to send it. You did not in your last tell me if I wrote to you about the cuckoo. •• Ever yours, J. Hunter. Very soon after the date of the last letter, Hunter was attacked with an alarming fit of illness, brought on by anxiety of mind, at being called on to pay a large sum of money for a friend, for whom he had become security; a call which his circumstances made
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