The Midwife and the Witch

In spite of the mass of papers both printed and in manuscript belonging or relating to William Hunter, his work and achievements, information about his private life, his household, nature, beliefs, and pastimes, is surprisingly scant. Sir Charles Illingworth's biography is the more remarkable, therefore, for making the subject appear as a real person. The way that this has been done is to make full use of such documents as reveal his thoughts and ambitions and, as the author states in the Preface, 'I have written it in the first person to be able to give a more intimate picture of the man and for the same reason I have made free use of expressions and forms of speech taken verbatim from his own writings'. The book contains much interesting and valuable information about eighteenth-century London, its people, architecture and events, as well as a useful background of national and international history. There are 184 references to original sources; a complete list of William Hunter's publications and three other valuable appendices: a record of the five known portraits and four engravings; a list of the biographies which consist of six full-length publications and eight short notices; and a detailed account of students' notes of his lectures and their whereabouts. Unfortunately Section 2 of Appendix D contains details of only one set of volumes in the Library of the Royal College of Surgeons of England; the full holding includes a dozen more, together with two sets in which some of the notes are from lectures given by William Hewson. The illustrations are excellent, consisting of twenty plates of which three are in colour: an illumination from the de Consolatione Philosophiae (1385) of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius; another from the York Psalter (c. 1173); and part of a page from Cicero's de Officiis, the first dated edition of any classical author (printed at Mainz in 1465, on Gutenburg's original press by Schoeffer, one of his assistants, who married the daughter of Fust or Faust, the lawyer immortalized by Goethe), all from William Hunter's own collection. The author has been commendably restrained, even regarding those events which would provide rich material for sensational anecdote. No more than reasonable assumptions have been made where facts have been lacking and he is careful not to exaggerate the relationship between the two brothers, particularly in regard to the disagreement between them in the matter of the placenta. William Hunter has been neglected by medical historians in comparison with his brother John. Sir Charles Illingworth's book has done much to make good this deficiency and will, it is hoped, reawaken interest in him not only as one of the leading gynaecologists of the eighteenth century but also as a pioneer in the promotion of reform and improvement in medical education. The author is to be congratulated upon this work; the production is in the customary excellent style of E. & S. Livingstone Ltd. The only serious drawback is that the index is rendered of less value by lack of detail and many omissions. JESSIE DOBSON.