The anatomical and pathological preparations of Dr. William Hunter in the Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow.

  • Teacher, John H. (John Hammond), 1869-1930.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The anatomical and pathological preparations of Dr. William Hunter in the Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow. 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.

    51/70 (page 63)
    of parts of them with his printed works shows that they are fairly accurate reports—uncommonly good for students’ notes. That such good sets of notes should exist is not surprising, for the notes of these lectures were treasured by their owners as valuable books of reference through all their lives. Good sets of them were passed from hand to hand among those who could not actually attend the lectures, and were frequently copied. Hunter desired his students to attend two courses, which they were able to do in one winter, and during the first to take no notes; “ his [the student] business is, first of all, to get clear ideas of everything. His eyes and ears are to be employed in that service only. He is first to understand; let him remember as he can.” In the second, he should take careful notes and re-write them afterwards. Many students (we know from Medical Commentaries) actually attended course after course for two, or even three, winters, and were thus able to get their notes very complete.1 To describe Hunter’s courses as anatomy lectures conveys a very inadequate idea of what they were. They embraced anatomy, physiology, and pathology, and also courses of operative surgery and midwifery. The autumn course of 1775 (MS. No. 42, c. 25) consisted of 112 meetings, which is probably about the average, and extended over about three and a half months. The lectures were given daily, Saturdays as well as week days, and extra evening lectures had to be added to make up this number in that brief time. William Hunter delivered most of the day lectures himself; it was a regular engagement with him; but the evening lectures, and certain of the day ones were left to his partner, who also had to lecture if “ the Doctor ” happened to be called away on urgent business, or were indisposed. Of the 112 lectures, 2 were the introductory ones; 80 were devoted to what was included under the term anatomy; 15 were on operative surgeiy ; 3 on the making of preparations and embalming (a subject to which William Hunter had devoted a good deal of attention); and the remaining 12 on midwifery, about half of them being anatomical. The importance of these courses can hardly be over- estimated ; with the exception of chemistry and materia medica, they were the whole of what may be described as the science part of a medical curriculum in those days. The meetings lasted two hours, which some people thought too long, but there was “ useful 1 Medical Commentaries, p. 8, et seq. It was from notes taken in shorthand and re-written that John Hunter’s surgery lectures were printed. Works, Palmer’s edition, vol. i.