A supplement to the first part of Medical commentaries / by Dr. Hunter.

  • William Hunter
Date:
1764
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A supplement to the first part of Medical commentaries / by Dr. Hunter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    will call it rude, and malevolent, and unprovoked; but he mull allow that It is a full anfwer to his fecond argument, and that hitherto, therefore, he ftands juftly fufpedted of plagiarifm from B, Haller. He proceeds to urge his fecond argument thus : “ One of thefe fadts was as much the fubjedt of my enquiry, at that time, as the other; and in the Opuf- 44 cula Pathologica (the book alluded to) are both of them fatisfadtorily <c accounted for, and made to illuftrate each other.” The reader will perhaps be amazed when I allure him, that the one fa<3: in difpute, called here one of thefe faffs, is neither accounted for fatisfadtorily, nor unfa- tisfadtorily ; nor made to illuftrate the other, or to illuftrate itfelf, or to illuftrate any thing elfe; it is not fo much as once mentioned. Let us go to the next argument: he fays, “ Why fhould I call the cafe tx related by Mr. Sharp a lufus naturce ? Why not avail myfelf thoroughly 44 of the plagiarifm, by giving a true folution of the appearance; (hewing that it was not a lufus naturce, nor produced by what Mr. Sharp and <c Dr. Hunter had thought was the caufe of it, but by the inteftine being 44 pufhed into the open tunica vaginalis ? ” Any man who read Aqua- pendente’s Tradt on the valves of the veins, might have availed himfelf thoroughly of it, and explained the circulation of the blood ; yet the obvious inference, which had efcaped Aquapendente, efcaped everybody, till Harvey’s keen glance caught it. How ridiculous it is in Mr. P. to alk why he did not avail himfelf of B. Haller’s obfervation, by giving a true folution of the appearance 1 The queftion proves only, that it feems to have required a little more thought and attention than he was pleafed to give it: which, I prefume, his acquaintance will not think very ftrange. “ All this is in the fame chapter of the fame book;” not in the fame, nor in any other chapter of the fame book. The reader may ftare, indeed ; but the fadt is fo. “ From this book Dr. Hunter and his “ brother derived all their knowledge of both thefe fubjedts.” People naturally judge of others by their own experience of themfelves. No ; I beg Mr. P.’s pardon : he knows that a good deal of anatomical know- lege is, to be got without books or difledtions. Let any man, for in- ftance, who knows but the common things, keep a good correfpondence with ftudents, or borrow notes taken at ledtures, and he may, with very little trouble, become as great a difcoverer as a modern junior profeffor, or fenior furgeon. If the reader will take the trouble of comparing Mr. J. Hunter’s account of both thefe fubjeffs, with B. Haller’s, he will fee what reafon Mr. P. could have to aflert, with original fimplicity, in his ' defence, that Dr. Hunter and his brother took all their knowlege of both B thefe
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