William Hunter (anatomist)
William Hunter | |
|---|---|
 William Hunter | |
| Born | 23 May 1718 |
| Died | 30 March 1783 London |
| Nationality | Scottish |
| Alma mater | University of Glasgow |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | anatomy |
 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (July 2009) |
William Hunter FRS (23 May 1718 – 30 March 1783) was a Scottish anatomist and physician.
He was born at Long Calderwood near East Kilbride, South Lanarkshire, the elder brother of John Hunter. After studying divinity at the University of Glasgow, he went into medicine in 1737, studying under William Cullen. He was a leading teacher of anatomy, and the outstanding obstetrician of his day. His guidance and training of his ultimately more famous brother was also of great importance.
Early career
Arriving in London, Hunter became resident pupil to William Smellie (1741–44) and he was trained in anatomy at St George's Hospital, London, specialising in obstetrics. He followed the example of Smellie in giving a private course on dissecting, operative procedures and bandaging, from 1746. His courtly manners and sensible judgement helped him to advance until he became the leading obstetric consultant of London. Unlike Smellie, he did not favour the use of forceps in delivery. Stephen Paget said of him:
- "He never married; he had no country house; he looks, in his portraits, a fastidious, fine gentleman; but he worked till he dropped and he lectured when he was dying."[1]
To orthopaedic surgeons he is famous for his studies on bone and cartilage. In 1743 he published the paper On the structure and diseases of articulating cartilages - which is often cited - especially the following sentence: “If we consult the standard Chirurgical Writers from Hippocrates down to the present Age, we shall find, that an ulcerated Cartilage is universally allowed to be a very troublesome Disease; that it admits of a Cure with more Difficulty than carious Bone; and that, when destroyed, it is not recovered” [2]
Later career
In 1764, he became physician to Queen Charlotte. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1767 and Professor of Anatomy to the Royal Academy in 1768.
In 1768 he built the famous anatomy theatre and museum in Great Windmill Street, Soho, where the best British anatomists and surgeons of the period, including his brother John, were trained. His greatest work was Anatomia uteri umani gravidi [The anatomy of the human gravid uterus exhibited in figures] (1774), with plates engraved by Rymsdyk (1730–90),[3] and published by the Baskerville Press. He chose as a model for clear, precise but schematic illustration of anatomic dissections the drawings by Leonardo da Vinci conserved in the Royal Collection at Windsor: Kenneth Clark considered him responsible for the Eighteenth-century rediscovery of Leonardo's drawings in England.
To aid his teaching of dissection, in 1775 Hunter commissioned sculptor Agostino Carlini to make a cast of the flayed but muscular corpse of a recently executed criminal, a smuggler. He was professor of anatomy at the Royal Academy of Arts in London from 1769 until 1772.[4] He was interested in arts, and had strong connections to the artistic world.
In 1770 he built himself a house in Glasgow fully equipped for the practice of his science, and this formed the nucleus of the University of Glasgow's Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery.
An avid coin and book collector
William Hunter was an avid antique coin collector and the Hunter Coin cabinet in the Hunterian Museum is one of the world's great collections. According to the Preface of Catalogue of Greek Coins in the Hunterian Collection (Macdonald 1899), Hunter purchased many important collections, including those of Horace Walpole and the bibliophile Thomas Crofts. King George III even donated an Athenian gold piece.
When the famous book collection of Anthony Askew, the Bibliotheca Askeviana, was auctioned off upon Askew's death in 1774, Hunter purchased many significant volumes in the face of stiff competition from the British Museum.
He died in 1783, aged 64, and was buried in London at St James's, Piccadilly.
Anecdote
He used to relate the following anecdote: During the American war, he was consulted by the daughter of a peer, who confessed herself pregnant, and requested his assistance; he advised her to retire for a time to the house of some confidential friend; she said that was impossible, as her father would not suffer her to be absent from him a single day. Some of the servants were, therefore, let into the secret, and the doctor made his arrangement with the treasurer of the Foundling Hospital for the reception of the child, for which he was to pay. The lady was desired to weigh well if she could bear pain without alarming the family by her cries; she said "Yes," and she kept her word. At the usual period she was delivered, not of one child only, but of twins. The doctor, bearing the two children, was conducted by a French servant through the kitchen, and left to ascend the area steps into the street. Luckily the lady's maid recollected that the door of the area might perhaps be locked; and she followed the doctor just in time to prevent his being detained at the gate. He deposited the children at the Foundling Hospital, and paid for each. The father of the children was a colonel of the army who went with his regiment to America and died there. The mother afterwards married a person of her own rank.
References
- ^ Garrison, Fielding H. 1914. An introduction to the history of medicine. Saunders, Philadelphia. p269
- ^ Hunter W. On the structure and diseases of articulating cartilages. Trans R Soc Lond 1743;42B:514-21
- ^ Thornton, John L. 1982. Jan van Rymsdyk: medical artist of the eighteenth century. Oleander Press, Cambridge.[page needed]
- ^ Kemp M (ed) 1975. Dr. William Hunter at the Royal Academy of Arts. Glasgow.[page needed]
- Buchanan WW (2003). "William Hunter (1718-1783)". Rheumatology. 42 (10): 1260–1. doi:10.1093/rheumatology/keg003. PMID 14508042.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Dunn PM (1999). "Dr William Hunter (1718-83) and the gravid uterus". Archives of Disease in Childhood. 80 (1): F76–7. PMC 1720874. PMID 10325820.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - James T (1994). "William Hunter, surgeon and Edward Gibbon, historian: an 18th century connection". Adler Museum Bulletin. 20 (3): 24–5. PMID 11639996.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Kemp M (1992). "True to their natures: Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr William Hunter at the Royal Academy of Arts". Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London. 46 (1): 77–88. doi:10.1098/rsnr.1992.0004. PMID 11616172.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Waterhouse JP, Mason DK (1990). "Contributions of William Hunter (1718-1783) to dental science". British Dental Journal. 168 (8): 332–5. doi:10.1038/sj.bdj.4807187. PMID 2185812.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Rey R (1990). History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences (in French). 12 (1): 105–10. PMID 2243922.
{{cite journal}}: Missing or empty|title=(help); Unknown parameter|trans_title=ignored (|trans-title=suggested) (help) - Buchanan WW, Kean WF, Palmer DG (1987). "The contribution of William Hunter (1718-1783) to the study of bone and joint disease". Clinical Rheumatology. 6 (4): 489–503. doi:10.1007/BF02330585. PMID 3329589.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Herschfeld JJ (1985). "William Hunter and the role of "oral sepsis" in American dentistry". Bulletin of the History of Dentistry. 33 (1): 35–45. PMID 3888326.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Philipp E (1985). "William Hunter: anatomist and obstetrician supreme". Huntia. 44–45: 122–48. PMID 11622001.
- Porter R (1983). "William Hunter, surgeon". History Today. 33: 50–2. PMID 11617139.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Thornton JL, Want PC (1983). "William Hunter (1718-1783) and his contributions to obstetrics". British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. 90 (9): 787–94. PMID 6351897.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - "Different letters from the past 2) Tobias Smollett to William Hunter". Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. 62 (2): 146–9. 1980. PMC 2492344. PMID 6990856.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Kapronczay K (1978). Orvosi Hetilap (in Hungarian). 119 (10): 598–600. PMID 628557.
{{cite journal}}: Missing or empty|title=(help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help); Unknown parameter|trans_title=ignored (|trans-title=suggested) (help) - Longo LD (1978). "Classic pages in obstetrics and gynecology. On retroversion of the uterus. William Hunter. Medical Observations and Inquiries, vol. 4, pp. 400-409, 1771". American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. 131 (1): 95–6. PMID 347937.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Chitwood WR (1977). "John and William Hunter on aneurysms". Archives of Surgery. 112 (7): 829–36. PMID 327974.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Forbes TR (1976). "Death of a chairman: a new William Hunter manuscript". The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine. 49 (2): 169–73. PMC 2595271. PMID 782049.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Kirsner AB (1972). "William Hunter: lessons to be learned from congenital heart disease". Medical Times. 100 (12): 107–8 passim. PMID 4564592.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Illingworth C (1971). "The erudition of William Hunter. His notes on early Greek printed books". Scottish Medical Journal. 16 (6): 290–2. PMID 4932920.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - , (1968). "William Hunter (1718-1783) anatomist, physician, obstetrician". JAMA. 203 (8): 593–5. doi:10.1001/jama.203.8.593. PMID 4870514.
{{cite journal}}:|author=has numeric name (help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) - Thomas KB (1960). "A female foetus, drawn from nature by Mr. Blakey for William Hunter". Medical History. 4: 256. PMC 1034906. PMID 13838001.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Morris WI (1959). "Brotherly love; an essay on the personal relations between William Hunter and his brother John". Medical History. 3 (1): 20–32. PMC 1034444. PMID 13632205.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Kerr JM (1957). "William Hunter; his life, personality and achievements". Scottish Medical Journal. 2 (9): 372–8. PMID 13467308.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Oppenheimer JM (1957). "John and William Hunter and some eighteenth century scientific moods". Transactions & Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. 25 (2): 97–102. PMID 13468030.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Ball OF (1952). "John and William Hunter. II". Modern Hospital. 79 (5): 87–9. PMID 13002276.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Ball OF (1952). "John and William Hunter. 1". Modern Hospital. 79 (4): 86–8. PMID 12992956.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Rudolf CR (1950). "A new portrait of William Hunter". British Medical Journal. 2 (4684): 886. doi:10.1136/bmj.2.4684.886. PMC 2038933. PMID 14772509.
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