Medicine and Shakespeare in the English Renaissance

his skills as an artist: Hunter had need of facile draughtsmen to produce representations of specimens in his collections. In return for Clift's services, Hunter was to bring the young man up as a surgeon. Although Clift lived in the extensive establishment in Leicester Square and regularly acted as Hunter's amanuensis, there is tantalizing little about his master in these letters. In a rare reference, Clift described Hunter as "a verry curious man, and plain as well for he has hair white as snow and has never got it dressed, I believe there is not a bit of Pride in him.. ." (p. 30). There was no opportunity for Clift to deepen his acquaintance with Hunter, who died on 16 October 1793. Clift's true master in the ensuing years was the museum that Hunter had constructed at such pain and expense during his life. Clift did not tax his relations with details of the collection although they were aware of its importance in their brother's life. When in 1801 one sister finally laid eyes on the thing itself she was astonished to find "Thousands of Large Bottles with both Fleash fish and fowls perservd [sic] in spirits its sertonly verry Courious with a quantity of Scelletons great and small.. ." (pp. 196-7). On the whole the letters are more diverting than revealing to those interested in John Hunter and his legacy. As in any extended correspondence of this period, references to illness and injury do, however, abound. The medical historian will find passing reference to trephines, bleeding, and electrification for gout. Perhaps most intriguing is the evidence contained in one letter of a keen interest among artisans of the period in the mysteries of human anatomy. Any book that reduces the gap between the "two cultures" is to be welcomed, and this one particularly. The subject has glamour on both sides; the author is well placed to do both of them justice, having edited Shakespeare and written on Renaissance biology; and the publishers have been generous, producing a well-bound volume with clear print, full notes, bibliography, general index, and a list of Shakespeare passages discussed, almost four hundred of them. Nor do the contents disappoint. Hoeniger covers both medicine and the organization of the medical profession, Paracelsus as well as the Galenic tradition, illustrating them with copious references to Shakespeare and adding three essays on topics that should interest historians …