Volume 1

The Hunterian oration : delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons, February 15th, 1897 / by Christopher Heath.

  • Christopher Heath
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Hunterian oration : delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons, February 15th, 1897 / by Christopher Heath. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    was so great that the work was received both at home and abroad with acclamation. In 1787, the year after publication, French and German translations appeared. In 1788 there was a second English edition, and in 1791 the first American edition was published. There were not wanting, however, contemporary critics, and foremost among them must be mentioned Benjamin Bell of Edin- burgh, and Mr. Jesse Foot, surgeon, to whom I have already referred. ‘This last gentleman brought out a volume of 450 pages, in which he goes seriatiom through Hunter’s work, criticising as far as possible all his statements, and speaking of him invariably as the “ Professor,”? which he seems to regard as a term of reproach. Unfortunately Hunter started with the idea that the poisons of gonorrhcea and syphilis were identical, and so early as 1767 made experimental inoculations upon himself with gonorrhceal matter, as he believed, but which no doubt was mixed with the discharge from a chancre within the urethra. A chancre and secondary symptoms resulted, for which mercury was taken, and in his own words “the time the experiments took up from the first insertion to the complete cure was about three years.” After such a personal experience it is not surprising to find Hunter laying down explicitly, “‘The experiment proves that matter from a gonorrhoea will produce chancres.” His critic, Foot, takes the same view, and says sarcastically, “I shall be glad to be informed by the Professor who ever doubted but that it [the poison] was the same! 7” It is the more curious that such an acute observer as Hunter should have fallen into such an error, for we find him laying down that “ till about 1753 it was generally supposed that the matter from the urethra in gonorrhcea arose from an ulcer or ulcers in that passage, but from observation it was then proved that this was not the case.” He proceeds also to show, by the exami- nation of the bodies of criminals known to be the subjects of gonorrhcea at the time of execution, that the prevailing
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