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.

    75/488 (page 67)
    once simple and profound j minute in his anatomical demon- strations, yet the very reverse of dry and tedious. Subjects, which were uninteresting in themselves, were rendered interesting by the liveliness of his descriptions, and the more important points were illustrated by the relation of cases and the introduction of appropriate anecdotes, which, while they relieved the painful efibrt of attention, served to impress his lessons on the mind in such a manner that they could never be effaced. His paper on the structure of the cartilages of joints, published in the Philo- sophical Transactions for the year 1743 (at which time he was only 25 years of age, and in which he anticipated all that Bichat wrote sixty years afterwards respecting the structure and arrangement of the synovial membranes), and his illustrations of the gravid uterus, sufficiently show how correct he was in matters of detail, and at the same time how comprehensive were his general views. But we have evidence that his lectures possessed merits of a higher order than these. His paper on the 'Uncertainty of the Signs of Murder in the Case of Bastard Children,' published in one of the volumes [sixth] of the Medical Observations and Inquiries, seems to have been little else than a transcript of a part of one of his lectures; and it is impossible to peruse it without being struck, not only with the intellectual penetration, the great good sense, and the power of argument, which is there displayed, but also of the indications which it affords of a humane, charitable, and even of a tender disposition. If we may venture, from this specimen, to form our judgment as to his other lectures, their tendency must have been to improve his pupils with respect to their moral qualities, fully as much as with respect to their pro- fessional attainments. For the teaching of practical anatomy William Hunter seems to have secured an abundant supply of bodies in spite of the difficulties and dangers with which the getting of them was beset. Fordyce, afterwards one of his trustees, stated in a letter to Cullen,^ that when he was a student under Hunter he dissected three bodies. Dissection could hardly have been so thorough as it is now, for the means of preserving the bodies were very imperfect, and even in winter they were of little use after eight or ten days. But, since the students had few classes, perhaps even none except anatomy, they probably gave up most of their time to dissection when they obtained a subject, Probably, too, some time was spent in practising 'Thomson's CuUen, vol. i., p. 124.