a surgical student for a satisfactory account of those febrile and nervous affections which local disease produces, except that of Mr. Hunter."*

Indeed, the very term "constitutional" appears to have come into everyday use, in consequence of the general recognition of truths which Hunter was the first to explain.

"In his pathology," says Mr. Green, "Hunter, by contemplating life as an agency working under the control of law, remained true to the principle already secured in his physiology; and it enabled him to regard the living body in disease, no less than in health, as a living whole and an organic unity. Thus we find him not only recognising the living body as a constitution by virtue of which it forms a system of interdependent parts, and of balanced forces mutually reacting and combining to one end; but also raising into notice the fact that these powers may and do exist in various degrees of intensity, and relative subordination, the result being, in each instance, the constitution of the individual, with its marked peculiarities. And if, from this vantage ground, he was led to determine the pathological significance of the terms susceptibility,' 'disposition,' 'irritability,' and the like, and to penetrate the nature of 'hereditary tendencies ;' it also induced him to devote a large portion of his lectures to a consideration of sympathy, the term being intended to express the community, and as it were consent of feeling and action, which preserve the bond of interdependence in all the parts and actions of the living body in their conspiration to an organic whole. He saw it was from a knowledge of morbid sympathy that we are enabled to anticipate the immediate and remote effects of injury to the living frame; and that it is under the conditions of sympathy that we have to study the nature and end of constitutional irritation in its various forms. And as many of the actions excited by sympathy are for the purpose of effecting processes which tend to the repair of injuries, and to the removal of disease, the principle which he establishes supplies an intelligible meaning to the so called vis medicatrix naturæ, as the law of integrity, or the ever-present tendency to integration, which, in all life, having produced a whole, ever tends to preserve and restore that which it has produced."+

We have quoted this passage because, though somewhat peculiar in its phraseology, it appears to us to be very full of thought, and to take in much of the general scope of Hunter's views of the animal economy.

Considering, then, that we owe to Hunter the true knowledge of inflammation throughout the wide range of its phenomena, and the original and masterly illustration of the constitutional effects of local disease and injury, it is evident that he is justly entitled to be regarded as the father of pathological surgery, and as the first who raised surgery from the rank of an art to that of a science. If this had been all he ever did, what name in the annals of medicine could have had a prouder claim to distinction? The first approach to an accurate knowledge of the anatomy of the lymphatic system, and the establishment of its true functions, are due to the conjoint labours of William and John Hunter. The existence of lymphatic vessels had long been known: and somewhat earlier than the time of the Hunters, conjectures had been thrown out as to their absorbent action; but their relation to the lymphatic glands, and their connexion in one entire system permeating the whole animal frame, and ministering to an important general function, were brought to light for the first time by the researches of these distinguished brothers.

John Hunter showed that an injection of mercury, forced into the substance of the lymphatic glands, would fill not only the glands, but all the lymphatic vessels proceeding from them; and it was his intention to have traced the lymphatics in this manner throughout the body, and to have given a complete description and figure of the whole absorbent system; but he was prevented, by a long illness, from prosecuting his design. His brother William bears witness to these facts, and Cruikshank, who perfected the anatomy of the absorbent system, distinctly acknowledges the priority of John Hunter. An immediate application of the physiological views developed by his own and his brother's researches was made by John Hunter in his beautiful theory of the action of the lymphatics in balancing that of the nutritive vessels, and modelling the different

On the Constitutional Origin and Treatment of Local Diseases, p. 1.

+ Address delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons, March 29th, 1859, as reported in the Lancet.

It must be corfessed, however, that they fell into a great error in denying the absorbent power of the veins, which was then generally admitted; and that they thus made a step backward, as well as one in advance.

organs of the body into their just shape and proportions. Still more important was the use which he made of these discoveries in explaining the process of ulceration, which constitutes, "perhaps one of the most successful efforts that has hitherto been made by any pathologist to apply the knowledge of a living function to the explanation of morbid appearances."*

Among the general subjects on which Hunter exercised his versatile powers was the venereal disease. In the investigation of this, however, he fell far short of the excellence which he attained on most other subjects involving the illustration of general principles, and the application of vital laws to the elucidation of morbid actions. Still, he was undoubtedly the first who cultivated this subject in a scientific spirit; and there is one point of view in which his treatise may be considered as particularly valuablenamely, as the earliest attempt to illustrate the laws of morbid poisons. Many of Hunter's theoretical views of syphilis have been proved, by more recent observation, to be erroneous, such as that of its invariable tendency to go on from bad to worse, and that of its incurability by any other than a specific remedy. But Hunter did not excel in pure theory; his mind was not of a logical cast; and his hypothetical reasoning was often-nay almost always-vague and inconclusive. His forte lay in seizing with amazing sagacity on those points of a subject which afforded scope for anatomical demonstration or physiological experiment-in bringing to bear on such points a most exact and comprehensive knowledge of comparative structure-and in devising, with the most subtle ingenuity, experiments directly adapted to solve the point at issue. The venereal disease was not a subject which afforded much scope for these qualities, and therefore, as truly remarked by Dr. George G. Babington in his preface to the treatise, it was less adapted than many other subjects to the peculiar genius of John Hunter.

It is not to be denied, however, that Hunter brought to the illustration of the venereal disease the same laborious observation of facts which characterizes all his works. His delineation of its local and constitutional effects is given with a masterly hand, and his precepts for its treatment have in the main held their ground amid all subsequent fluctuations of opinion. Before he took the subject in hand it was quite out of the pale of scientific inquiry, and the treatment of the disease was altogether empirical and unsatisfactory. He left it enriched with copious and correct observations, and with sound views of treatment; so that his treatise on this subject, though it will not bear a comparison with his greater works, is still of no ordinary merit, and must be regarded as the production of a very great pathological and practical surgeon.

The observations of Hunter on the nervous system were perhaps less extensive than might have been expected from so ingenious and indefatigable an inquirer. This seems to have been one of the few instances in which speculative views occupied him too much, to the exclusion of that inductive method of research which usually guided him to such sound and beneficial results. On some points, however, following his accustomed modes of inquiry, he arrived at highly important conclusions. He distinctly showed that organs which are endowed by one nerve with a special sense, derive their common sensation from another nerve having a different origin; and he determined this nerve of common sensation, in the case of the eye, the nose, and the ear, to be the nerve of the fifth pair. He extended the same reasoning to the organ of taste, though he did not verify it, as in the preceding instances, by anatomical demonstration. Hunter, therefore, unquestionably originated, and pursued with no trifling success, that method of inquiry into the functions of the nervous system which Sir C. Bell afterwards carried out to so large an extent, and with such brilliant results. Another observation of great interest, both in a physiological and psychological point of view, was first made by Hunter-namely, that nerves adapted to the reception of peculiar impressions convey such peculiar impressions to the brain, though merely a mechanical stimulus be applied to them; and he instances the sensation of light produced by a mechanical impression on the retina, and that of sound by a similar impression on the acoustic nerve. Later experiments have extended this observation, by showing that if the stimulus be of a chemical or electrical, stead of a mechanical nature, the nerve will still convey its appropriate impression.

l'homson's Lectures on Inflammation, p. 869.

There is no function which Hunter has more largely illustrated by an appeal to comparative structure, than that of digestion, and the preparations in his museum displaying the anatomy of the organs which minister to this function, from the lowest animals up to man, form a most beautiful and truly instructive series. The power of living matter to resist the action of the gastric fluid had already been incidentally remarked by Grew; but Hunter adduced a most interesting illustration of the fact, in the case of the stomach itself, by showing that in some instances this organ is partially dissolved after death by the very fluid which it secreted while living. This fact has been disputed, and the phenomena referred to morbid actions going on during life by Cruveilbier and others; but the experiments of Dr. Carswell have set the matter at rest, and established the correctness of Hunter's views.

That the act of vomiting is performed by the diaphragm and abdominal muscles, while the stomach itself is passive, was a position maintained by Hunter, though M. Magendie imagined that he was the first to discover the fact.

To John Hunter we unquestionably owe the resuscitation of the study of transcendental or philosophical anatomy. This study did, in truth, originate with Aristotle; but that extraordinary man was, in this respect, not years only but two thousand years in advance of the age in which he lived; and neither Hunter, nor others far more learned than he, had any conception of the physiological treasures sealed up in the writings of the "mighty Stagyrite"-treasures which have fully come to light only within the last thirty years.

In Hunter's descriptions of his drawings illustrative of the development of the chick, is the following very remarkable passage:

"If we were capable of following the progress of increase of the number of parts of the most perfect animal, as they first formed themselves in succession from the very first, to its state of full perfection, we should probably be able to compare it with some one of the incomplete animals themselves, of every order of animals in the creation, being at no stage different from some of those inferior orders; or, in other words, if we were to take a series of animals from the more imperfect to the perfect, we should probably find an imperfect animal corresponding with some stage of the perfect."

Surely never was an original magnificent conception so poorly clad in language? But here is the unequivocal announcement of a theory which, though too absolutely adopted by some writers, has exercised, and is worthy to exercise, no small influence on the reasonings of philosophical anatomists.

เ

The subject of monstrosities engaged much of Hunter's attention. He framed a classification of them, and produced them artificially by curious and well devised experiments on living animals. He arrived at the conclusion that such deviations from ordinary structure were not, as it was then the fashion to term them, lusus naturæ ; for he observed that every species had a disposition to deviate from normal development in a manner peculiar to itself-a position virtually the same with that which M. Isidore St.-Hilaire makes the basis of his celebrated treatise on the Anomalies of Organization.' Hunter explained congenital defects by a reference to the transitory structures of intrauterine life. It was thus that he solved the question how the intestine came to be in contact with the testicle in congenital hernia. He observed the position and relations of the gland in the abdomen of the foetus; traced its descent into the scrotum; found that it carried along with it a peritoneal pouch like a hernial sac; and showed that, in the event of the simultaneous passage of a portion of intestine, this pouch must remain a common receptacle for the intestine and the testis. He then went on to show how the abdominal position of the testis, and the transitory condition of the tunica vaginalis in the human foetus, are permanent conditions in the lower mammalia.

Of Hunter's labours in the field of zoology it is now impossible to form a complete estimate, because that portion of his manuscripts in which his observations in this department were especially recorded, was destroyed by Sir Everard Home. Sufficient however remains, collected in his museum, and scattered through his published writings, to prove how great must have been the entire amount of his contributions.

He made several attempts at a classification of animals based on their anatomical

structure. One of these he derived from the distribution of the nervous system; another from the reproductive organs; and another from the structure of the heart. The first was not carried out to its full extent; the second was relinquished as unsatisfactory; and the third was only an improvement upon that of Linnæus. Hunter, however, made very important advances towards a perfect classification of animals according to the distribution of the nervous system; and there was a stage of his inquiries at which, if he had not been deserted by his usual acuteness, he would assuredly not have left for Cuvier the grand division of animals into vertebrata and invertebrata. Hunter notes the aggregation of the nervous system into spinal and cerebral masses, as distinguishing fishes from those animals which are now called mollusca and articulata; but he did not perceive that the existence of this cerebro-spinal axis is equally characteristic of the classes above fishes; neither did it occur to him that, wherever there is a cerebro-spinal axis, there is also a bony case for it.

The study of what is now styled palaeontology was in its infancy in Hunter's days. But there is a paper of his on some fossil bones, presented to the Royal Society by the Margrave of Anspach, which shows that he had much larger and more enlightened views on the subject than any which were then generally entertained. Professor Owen has given an analysis of his paper, which we here transcribe, as being more to the purpose than anything which we could offer.

"In this paper, we may perceive that Hunter appreciated the value of the study of fossil remains, and their application to the elucidation of many important objects. First, with reference to the extension of our ideas respecting the zoology of this planet, we fi d him comparing the fossils which are the subject of the text with their recent analogues, and he shows that they differ both from them, and among themselves: his observations and comparisons are, it is true, too general and summary, and it was left to his successors in this field of inquiry to pursue the comparison with the requisite minuteness and precision, and to give names to the distinct but extinct species. Hunter next briefly alludes to the different situations and climates in the globe to which animals are more or less confined; and this subject, or the geographical distribution of animals considered in relation to fossil remains, elucidates, amongst other interesting questions, the changes of temperature to which different parts of the earth have been subject at different epochs. Hunter points out more distinctly, and with more detail, the evidence which extraneous fossils afford respecting the alternations of land and sea of which the earth's surface has been the theatre; and by his frequent allusion to the 'many thousand years' which must have elapsed during these periods, seems to have fully appreciated the necessity of an ample allowance of past time in order to account philosophically for the changes in question. Lastly, he treats of the nature and causes of the different states in which the remains of extinct animals are found: and many of the fossil bones which are the subject of his chemical experiments are still preserved in his museum.

Having thus taken a cursory view of Hunter's doctrines and opinions, and of the general principles which he sought to establish, we proceed to notice some of the more remarkable of his particular discoveries, and these we shall take in the order in which they suggest themselves.

1. He discovered and described the organ of hearing in the sepia-a discovery which has been attributed by Cuvier to Scarpa.

2. He first described the semicircular canals in the cetacea, the observation of which Cuvier claims for himself.

3. He preceded Camper by a short time in the discovery of the air-cells in the bones of birds, though there is no reason to doubt the originality of Camper in the same observation.

4. He discovered the peritoneal canals, or openings, in the eel, salmon, and cartilaginous fishes, as also in the crocodile.

5. He described the continuation of the peritoneal canals into the corpus cavernosum penis in the chelonia-an observation brought forward as new by M. Isidore St.-Hilaire and Martin St. Ange.

6. He discovered the motion of the blood in insects, describing correctly the action

• Note to Hunter on the Animal Economy, pp. 479, 480.

of the dorsal vessel, and the relation of the circulatory to the respiratory systemspoints on which Cuvier was subsequently in error.

7. He first observed the bi-auricular structure of the heart in the caduci-branchiate batrachia.

8. He discovered that the tubuli uriniferi extend to the surface of the kidney. 9. He first discovered the renal organ in the snail.

10. He discovered the circular arrangement of the nervous ganglia round the oral aperture of the mollusca, as also the double abdominal nervous cord of the articulata.

11. Conjointly with his brother William, he ascertained the true nature of the connexion between the placenta and the uterus. How much of the merit of this was due to each, it is impossible to determine, as each claimed the whole, and the dispute gave rise to a bitter feud between them.

12. He discovered the lymphatics in birds.

13. Amongst the most important improvements in practical surgery of the age in which Hunter lived, and which may be classed among his discoveries, was the operation, first suggested and practised by himself, of tying the femoral artery for the cure of popliteal aneurism. Considered simply in the light of an operation for the cure of aneurism, in which a ligature was thrown round the artery above the aneurismal tumour, leaving the tumour itself unopened, Hunter's operation was certainly not new, because, Anel had performed at Rome, in 1710, precisely such an operation on the brachial artery, for the cure of an aneurism at the flexure of the elbow, and with complete success; but considered in the light of an operation based on the principles that the collateral blood vessels would enlarge and carry on the circulation when the main trunk was rendered impervious, and that the aneurismal tumour would be gradually removed by the action of the absorbents, Hunter's operation was entirely new. It was new also in respect to its application to popliteal anuerism. The claim of priority which has been set up for Desault is absurd, for in his operation the artery was tied in the hamnot in the thigh; and though he did not open the tumour, it burst of itself, so that the operation affords no parallel with that of Hunter, and as regards results, was altogether inconclusive.

Several other of Hunter's particular discoveries have been already mentioned in connexion with his general doctrines and views, and more might be cited, but the foregoing may answer the purpose of the present brief survey.

We have thus endeavoured to give a sketch of what Hunter did for science, derived chiefly from an examination of his writings. But he has left a record of his thoughts and his discoveries far more interesting and impressive than any writing, in that museum, which is viewed by all capable of appreciating it with daily-increasing wonder. This is in reality by far the most remarkable of Hunter's works, and is, to our apprehension, utterly different in its whole scope and meaning from everything else that it ever entered into the mind of man to conceive or into his plans to execute. Anatomical museums, previously to that of Hunter, had been merely the repositories of certain objects calculated to convey information as to particular facts, or to exhibit points of individual interest or curiosity. Each object spoke for itself, and it spoke of nothing further. A museum which should carry out an abstract physiological principle through an almost endless series of forms, each exhibiting some new adaptation of structure to its manifestation, was a thing which had never been even dreamed of. Yet such was Hunter's museum. In the physiological portion of it at least, there is scarcely a preparation which stands alone. Each stands in relation to that which precedes and that which follows it, and each forms a link in an unbroken chain of investigation into the developments of the vital force. The whole is one continuous train of what may be called visible and tangible reasoning. It addresses us in an extraordinary symbolical language, in which the powerful but peculiarly constituted mind of Hunter delighted to embody its conceptions. As we have already hinted, he had in his composition some of the elements of a poet, and we may now add of an exceedingly great poet. That he was a man of vast imagination cannot be doubted, otherwise he never could have formed so stupendous a design as that of thus turning to shape the universe of life and giving