Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: John Hunter and his pupils / By S.D. Gross. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.
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![deep concern was that after the Hgation of so large an artery the collateral vessels might not be sufficient to carry on the circulation in the distal portion of the limb. He had derived some encourag^ement from an examination of the velvet of the stag's horn, in which there is an enormous development of vessels, estab- lishing an intimate connection between the antler and the integument of the head ; but to put this matter fully to the test, he induced Sir Everard Home to tie the femoral artery of a dog, and the result was pre- cisely what he had anticipated. He concluded, more- over, from a careful study of the functions of the lym- phatic vessels, that the blood in the aneurism would be gradually absorbed, and here, again, his reasoning did not disappoint him. It is a singular fact that Hunter foreshadowed the principles which now guide the surgeon in the treat- ment of clubfoot and analogous distortions. While dancing in i i^] he ruptured his tendo Achillis, a cir- cumstance which led him to institute a series of experi- ments upon the reunion of divided tendons in the dog, by severing these cords subcutaneously with a couching-needle. The animals were killed at different periods, when it was ascertained that the union had been effected in a manner similar to that of a simple fracture. His own tendo Achillis, as was found after death, had united by ossific matter. It nowhere appears that Hunter made any practical use of the knowledge thus acquired, and he cannot, therefore, as some of his admirers have asserted, be considered as the founder of orthopedic surgery, inasmuch as he made no practical application of the results of his ex- periments, but viewed them simply in their physio- logical and pathological relations. It remained for](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21220530_0047.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
