Volume 1

Catalogue of the anatomical and pathological preparations of Dr. William Hunter; prepared by J.H. Teacher.

  • Hunterian Museum (University of Glasgow)
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Catalogue of the anatomical and pathological preparations of Dr. William Hunter; prepared by J.H. Teacher. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    60/488 (page 52)
    that, one day in 1754, along with Dr. Mackenzie, Smellie's assis- tant, he had dissected a gravid uterus at terra, the arteries and veins of which had been unusually successfully injected by Dr. Mackenzie. In the dissection, he stated, he observed certain appearances which he supposed to be new. He completed the dissection, and made the parts into preparations.^ In the evening, full of the new discoveries, he came and described them to his brother, who at first treated him and them with gentle raillery, then went and saw the preparations, and was convinced of their truth. But, subsequently, when he described the discoveries in his writings he neglected to state how they were made. In virtue, then, of that one dissection John Hunter considered himself as having a just claim to the discovery of the structure of the placenta and its communication with the uterus, together with the use arising from such structure and communication [viz. the nature of the connection between the mother and the foetus], and of having first demonstrated the vascularity of the spongy chorion. Spongy chorion was the old name of the structure for which William Hunter, to get rid of confusion, invented the name decidua, which it still bears. In the story of the dissection John Hunter laid claim to the most important anatomical discoveries, which William Hunter had already published as his own in the engravings of the Anatomy of the Gh-avid Uterus; and in the rest of the paper he, on the one hand, forestalled his brother in the publication of the physiological discoveries which form the very pith and marrow of the Anatomical Description of the Gi'avid Uterus (which he had long promised, but had not yet been able to complete), claiming them as his own; and, on the other, controverted certain of his brother's most cherished opinions. In reply William wrote to the Royal Society protesting against John's claims, and pointing out that in regard to the connection between the mother and the foetus the doctrine had already been printed thirteen or fourteen years before in Haller's Physiology as his, and by him communicated to Haller; and that for many years past he had treated of it in his lectures as his own. In the third place, he added, occasionally in what I have printed, and in my lectures, I hope I have not overlooked opportunities of doing justice to Mr. Hunter's great merits, and of acknowledging tliat he has been an excellent assistant to me in this and in many other pursuits. By doing so, I always felt an inward gratification (shall I call itl) or 1 Not identifiable.