John Hunter : his life and labors / by C.W.G. Rohrer.
- Rohrer, C. W. G. (Caleb Wyand Geeting), 1873-1952
- Date:
- [1914]
Licence: In copyright
Credit: John Hunter : his life and labors / by C.W.G. Rohrer. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![December 30, 1707. His father, who appears to have been [10] a small farmer living on his own estate, was descended from a very old Scotch family, probably of Norman origin, the Hunters of Hunterston 3 in Ayrshire, whose history goes back to the thirteenth century. He was a man of refinement and l11! of some education, with a high moral and religious sense. He was nearly seventy years old at the time of John’s birth, who was the youngest of ten children, five dying in infancy. He died in 1738 4 * * at the age of seventy-eight. The mother was the daughter of a respectable citizen of Glasgow. According to M. Baillie, she was “ a woman of great worth and of considerable talents.” John was thus -left, at the age of ten, to her sole care and, although a woman of strong mind, she was particularly indulgent to him. She died on November 3d, 1751, aged sixty-six years. James, the eldest of the brothers who attained to manhood, was born in 1715. He was brought up to the law, but in 1742 he went to London to visit his brother William, who was at that time a teacher of anatomy, and was so captivated by his brother’s pursuits that he relinquished the law to become a practitioner of medicine. Intense application to anatomy impaired his health and made it necessary for him to return to Long Calderwood, where he died of a pulmonary hemor- rhage in 1743, in the twenty-ninth year of his age. He was a young man of pleasing address, and brilliant promise. Wil- liam said of him, that if he had lived to practice physic in London, nothing could have prevented his rising to the top of his profession. William, bom on the 23rd of May, 1718, early rose to unrivalled distinction as a teacher of anatomy in London, 3 The old manor-house of Himterston, with its tower of great antiquity, is still standing; once a strong-hold, now a farm-house. A report of the house, written in 1867, says that it has not changed since 1728, except that it was then thatched and is now slated, and two rooms downstairs have been thrown into one. From Hunter of Hunterston was descended Francis Hunter, John Hunter’s paternal grandfather. 4 1738 is the date given by Ottley. According to Dr. S. Foart Simmons, the correct date is October 30, 1741. This would make Hunter thirteen years old at the time of his father’s death.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22460287_0007.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
