John Hunter

John Hunter, by JESSIE DOBSON, Edinburgh and London, E. & S. Livingstone, 1969, pp. xvii, 361, illus., 50s. This book demonstrates that rare achievement, a historical work which blends narrative skill with meticulous factual accuracy. John Hunter's life lends itself singularly happily to biography, but its attractive surface has led biographers of the past to become entangled all too frequently in thickets of false emphasis. In this book it is Miss Dobson's intention; 'To show how John Hunter came to be held in such esteem', and to do this she has presented us with the sequences of his life and thought as far as possible in John Hunter's own words. At the same time she has made easily available to the reader a very wide range of references, invaluable for expanding on any particular facet of her own account. The construction of the book is reflected in the pages following the preface in which a complete chronological list of John Hunter's works is presented with full titles and references. This is followed by a general bibliography of some thirty-five items. This generous hors d'oeuvres serves the purpose of whetting the appetite of the historically-minded reader, and it is so tastefully served up as to carry no impression of undue learning to the reader in search of a straight tale. This tale is then told in ten chapters. At once, from the first chapter, one becomes fascinated by the complex emotional pattern which develops between the two brothers, William and John. Clearly each owed the other a great deal, particularly in those early years after 1748 when John came to London to assist his brother in his anatomical lectures. From the beginning it appears that John focused not only on normal anatomy but on morbid anatomy as well. In the winter of 1749 for example he records his observations on, 'a child brought into the room used for dissection in Covent Garden. On opening the thorax a large quantity of pus was found loose in the cavity with the surface of the lungs and the pleura furred over with a more solid substance similar to coagulable lymph. On removing this from those surfaces they were found entire.' Thus early was he making those observations through which he classified types of inflammation. The quotation actually comes from John Hunter's Treatise on Venereal Disease, published thirtyseven years later, in 1786. This interest in inflammation steadily matured through patient observation and experiment during the rest of his life, his Treatise on the Blood, Inflammation and Gun-shot Wounds not being published until a year after his death, in 1794. Throughout her book Miss Dobson quietly presents many new facts about episodes in John Hunter's life. Perhaps the most striking example is represented by the third chapter which describes Hunter's army service during the Seven Years' War. We are first of all orientated by a short account of the military background of the expedition planned to capture the island of Belleisle in 1760. The state of military and medical organization revealed leaves little room for surprise at the failure of the initial attack. Hoowever within two months the island was taken and John Hunter was left on it xeompanied by that band of colleagues whom he described so succinctly as, 'a damn'd disagreeable set'. In a series of letters between 1761 and 1763 we are treated to . d'.accout of John Hunter's experiences and impressions of Belleisle, and