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History of Civilization in England, Vol. 3 of 3

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I have now only one more name to add to this splendid catalogue of the great Scotchmen of the eighteenth century.848 But it is the name of a man, who, for comprehensive and original genius, comes immediately after Adam Smith, and must be placed far above any other philosopher whom Scotland has produced. I mean, of course, John Hunter, whose only fault was, an occasional obscurity, not merely of language, but also of thought. In this respect, and, perhaps, in this alone, Adam Smith had the advantage; for his mind was so flexible, and moved so freely, that even the vastest designs were unable to oppress it. With Hunter, on the contrary, it sometimes seemed as if the understanding was troubled by the grandeur of his own conceptions, and doubted what path it ought to take. He hesitated; the utterance of his intellect was indistinct.849 Still, his powers were so extraordinary, that, among the great masters of organic science, he belongs, I apprehend, to the same rank as Aristotle, Harvey, and Bichat, and is somewhat superior either to Haller or Cuvier. As to this classification, men will differ, according to their different ideas of the nature of science, and, above all, according to the extent to which they appreciate the importance of philosophic method. It is from this latter point of view that I have, at present, to consider the character of John Hunter; and, in tracing the movements of his most remarkable mind, we shall find, that, in it, deduction and induction were more intimately united than in any other Scotch intellect, either of the seventeenth or eighteenth century. The causes of this unusual combination, I will now endeavour to ascertain. When they are understood, they will not only explain many peculiarities in his works, but will afford materials for speculation, to those who love to examine the development of ideas, and who are able to discern the way in which different schemes of national thought have given different shapes to national character, and have thereby modified the whole course of human affairs, to an extent of which the ordinary compilers of history have not the slightest suspicion.

Hunter remained in Scotland till the age of twenty, when he settled in London; and, though he was abroad for about three years, he abandoned his own country, and became, socially and intellectually, a native of England.850 Hence, the early associations of his mind were formed in the midst of a deductive nation; the later associations, in the midst of an inductive one. For twenty years he lived among a people, who are, perhaps, the acutest reasoners in Europe, if you concede to them the principles from which they reason; but who, on the other hand, owing to their proneness to this method, are so greedy after general principles, that they will accept them on almost any evidence, and are, therefore, at once very credulous and very logical. In that school, and surrounded by those habits, the intellect of John Hunter was nurtured during the most impressible period of his life. Then the scene suddenly shifted. Coming to England, he passed forty years in the heart of the most empirical nation in Europe; a nation utterly abhorring all general principles, priding itself on its common sense, boasting, and with good reason too, of its practical sagacity, proclaiming aloud the superiority of facts over ideas, and despising every theory, unless some direct and immediate benefit could be expected to accrue from it. The young and ardent Scotchman found himself transplanted into a country totally different from that which he had just quitted; and such a difference could not fail to influence his mind. He saw, on every side, marks of prosperity, and of long and uninterrupted success, not only in practical, but also in speculative, life; and he was told that these things were effected by a system which made facts the first consideration. He was ambitious of fame, but he perceived that the road to fame was not the same in England as in Scotland. In Scotland, a great logician would be deemed a great man; in England, little account would be made of the beauty of his logic, unless he was careful that the premisses from which he argued, were trustworthy, and verified by experience. A new machine, a new experiment, the discovery of a salt, or of a bone, would, in England, receive a wider homage, than the most profound speculation from which no obvious results were apprehended. That this way of contemplating affairs has produced great good, is certain. But it is also certain, that it is a one-sided way, and satisfies only part of the human mind. Many of the noblest intellects crave for something which it cannot supply. In England, however, during the greater part of the eighteenth century, it was even more supreme than it is now, and was, indeed, so universal, that, from the year 1727 until nearly the close of the century, our country did not possess, in any branch of science, a speculator who had sufficient force to raise himself above those narrow views which were then deemed the perfection of wisdom.851 Much was added to our knowledge, but its distant boundaries were not enlarged. Though there was an increase of curious and valuable details, and though several of the small and proximate laws of nature were generalized, it must be admitted, that those lofty generalizations, which we owe to the seventeenth century, remained stationary, and that no attempt was made to push beyond them. When John Hunter arrived in London, in 1748, Newton had been dead more than twenty years, and the English people, absorbed in practical pursuits, and now beginning, for the first time, to enter into political life, had become more averse than ever to inquiries which aimed at truth without regard to utility, and had accustomed themselves to value science chiefly for the sake of the direct and tangible benefit which they might hope to derive from it.

That Hunter must have been influenced by these circumstances, will be obvious to whoever considers how impossible it is for any single mind to escape from the pressure of contemporary opinion. But, inasmuch as all his early associations had inclined him in another direction, we perceive that, during his long residence in England, he was acted on by two conflicting forces. The country of his birth made him deductive; the country of his adoption made him inductive. As a Scotchman, he preferred reasoning from general principles to particular facts; as an inhabitant of England, he became inured to the opposite plan of reasoning from particular facts to general principles. In every country, men naturally give the first place to what is most valued. The English respect facts more than principles, and therefore begin with the facts. The Scotch consider principles as most important, and therefore begin with the principles. And, I make no doubt that one of the reasons why Hunter, in investigating a subject, is often obscure, is that, on such occasions, his mind was divided between these two hostile methods, and that, leaning sometimes to one and sometimes to the other, he was unable to determine which he should choose. The conflict darkened his understanding. Adam Smith, on the other hand, in common with all the great Scotchmen who remained in Scotland, was remarkably clear. He, like Hume, Black, and Cullen, never wavered in his method. These eminent men were not acted on by English influence. Of all the most illustrious Scotchmen of the eighteenth century, Hunter alone underwent that influence, and he alone displayed a certain hesitation and perplexity of thought, which seems unnatural to so great a mind, and which, as it appears to me, is best explained by the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed.

 

One of the ablest of his commentators has justly observed, that his natural inclination was, to conjecture what the laws of nature were, and then reason from them, instead of reasoning to them by slow and gradual induction.852 This process of deduction was, as I have shown, the favourite method of all Scotchmen, and, therefore, was precisely the course which we should have expected him to adopt. But, inasmuch as he was surrounded by the followers of Bacon,853 this natural bias was warped, and a large part of his marvellous activity was employed in observations and experiments, such as no Scotch thinker, living in Scotland, would ever have engaged in. He himself declared, that thinking was his delight;854 and there can be no doubt that, had he been differently situated, thinking would have been his principal pursuit. As it was, the industry with which he collected facts, is one of the most conspicuous features in his career. His researches covered the whole range of the animal kingdom, and were conducted with such untiring zeal, that he dissected upwards of five hundred different species, exclusive of dissections of different individuals, and exclusive, too, of dissections of a large number of plants.855 The results were carefully arranged and stored up in that noble collection which he formed, and of the magnitude of which we may gain some idea from the statement, that, at his death, it contained upwards of ten thousand preparations illustrative of the phenomena of nature.856 By this means, he became so intimately acquainted with the animal kingdom, that he made a vast number of discoveries, which, considered singly, are curious, but which, when put together, constitute an invaluable body of new truths. Of these, the most important are, the true nature of the circulation in crustacea and insects;857 the organ of hearing in cephalopods;858 the power possessed by mollusks of absorbing their shells;859 the fact that bees do not collect wax, but secrete it;860 the semicircular canals of the cetacea;861 the lymphatics of birds;862 and the air-cells in the bones of birds.863 We are also assured, that he anticipated the recent discoveries respecting the embryo of the kangaroo;864 and his published works prove, that, in the human subject, he discovered the muscularity of the arteries,865 the muscularity of the iris,866 and the digestion of the stomach after death by its own juice.867 Although, in his time, animal chemistry was not yet raised to a system, and was consequently little heeded by physiologists, Hunter endeavoured, by its aid, to search out the qualities of the blood, so as to ascertain the properties of its constituents.868 He also examined it in different stages of embryonic life, and by minutely tracking it through its periods of development, he made the capital discovery, that the red globules of the blood are formed later than its other components. His contemporaries, however, were so little alive to the importance of this great physiological truth, that it fell dead upon them, and, being forgotten, it was, about fifty years afterwards, rediscovered, and was announced, in 1832, as a law of nature which had just been brought to light.869 This is one of many instances in the history of our knowledge, which proves how useless it is for a man to advance too far beyond the age in which he lives.870 But Hunter, besides making the discovery, also saw its meaning. From it, he inferred that the function of the red globules is to minister to the strength of the system, rather than to its repair.871 This is now universally admitted; but it was not admitted till long after his death. Its recognition is chiefly owing to the rapid advance of animal chemistry, and to improvements in the microscope. For, by the employment of these resources, it has become manifest, that the red globules, the respiratory process, the production of animal heat, and the energy of the locomotive organs, are but different parts of a single scheme.872 Their connexion with each other is established, not only by a comparison of different species, but also by a comparison of different members of the same species. In human beings, for example, the locomotive and other animal functions are more active in persons of a sanguine temperament than in those of a lymphatic temperament; while, in sanguine temperaments, the globules are more numerous than in lymphatic ones. The knowledge of this fact we owe to Lecanu;873 and to him we are also indebted for an analogous fact, corroborating the same view. He has shown, that the blood of women contains more water and fewer red globules than the blood of men;874 so that here again we discern the relation between these globules and the energy of animal life. Inasmuch, however, as these researches were not made until many years after the death of Hunter, the coincidence between them and his speculative conclusions is a striking instance of his power of generalization, and of that unrivalled knowledge of comparative anatomy, which supplied him with materials from which, in spite of the backwardness of animal chemistry, he was able to draw an inference, which later and minuter researches have decisively verified.875

 

Having thus, by a comprehensive survey of the animal world, associated its remarkable faculty of movement with the state of its blood, Hunter turned his attention to another aspect of the question, and took into consideration the movements of the vegetable world, in the hope that, by comparing these two divisions of nature, he might detect some law, which, being common to both, should unite into one study all the principles of organic motion. Though he failed in this great undertaking, some of his generalizations are very suggestive, and well illustrate the power and grasp of his mind. Looking at the organic kingdom as a whole, he supposed that its capacity of action, both in animals and in vegetables, was of three kinds. The first kind, was the action of the individual upon the materials it already possessed; and this gave rise to growth, secretion, and other functions, in which the juice of the plant was equivalent to the blood of the animal.876 The second kind of action had for its object to increase these materials; it was always excited by want, and its result was, to nourish and preserve the individual.877 The third kind was entirely due to external causes, including the whole material world, all the phenomena of which were a stimulus to some kind of action.878 By combining, in different ways, these different sources of motion, and by studying every incitement to action, first, in reference to one of the three great divisions just indicated, and, secondly, in reference to the power of action, as distinguished from the quantity of action,879 Hunter believed that some fundamental truths might be obtained, if not by himself, at all events by his successors. For, he thought that, though animals can do many things which plants cannot, still, the immediate cause of action is in both cases the same.880 In animals, there is more variety of motion, but in plants there is more real power. A horse is certainly far stronger than a man. Yet a small vine cannot only support, but can raise, a column of fluid five times higher than a horse can. Indeed, the power which a plant exercises of holding a leaf erect during an entire day, without pause and without fatigue, is an effort of astonishing vigour, and is one of many proofs, that a principle of compensation is at work, so that the same energy which, in the animal world, is weakened by being directed to many objects, is, in the vegetable world, strengthened by being concentrated on a few.881

In pursuing these speculations, which, amid much that is uncertain, contain, I firmly believe, a large amount of important, though neglected, truth, Hunter was led to consider how motion is produced by various forces, such as magnetism, electricity, gravitation, and chemical attraction.882 This carried him into inorganic science, where, as he clearly saw, the foundation of all organic science must be laid. Just as, on the one hand, the human frame could never be successfully studied, except by the aid of principles which had been collected from an investigation of animals below man,883 so, on the other hand, the laws of those very animals must, he said, be approached through the laws of common or inorganic matter.884 He, therefore, aimed at nothing less than to unite all the branches of physical science, taking them in the order of their relative complexity, and proceeding from the simplest to the most intricate. With this view, he examined the structure of the mineral kingdom, and, by an extensive comparison of crystals, he sought to generalize the principles of form, in the same way as, by a comparison of animals, he sought to generalize the principles of function. And, in doing this, he took into account, not only regular crystals, but also irregular ones.885 For, he knew that, in nature, nothing is really irregular or disorderly; though our imperfect apprehension, or rather the backwardness of our knowledge, prevents us from discerning the symmetry of the universal scheme. The beauty of the plan, and the necessity of the sequence, are not always perceptible. Hence, we are too apt to fancy that the chain is broken, because we cannot see every link in it. From this serious error, Hunter was saved by his genius, even more than by his knowledge. Being satisfied that every thing which happens in the material world, is so connected and bound up with its antecedents, as to be the inevitable result of what had previously occurred, he looked with a true philosophical eye at the strangest and most capricious shapes, because to him they had a meaning and a necessary purpose. To him, they were neither strange nor capricious. They were deviations from the natural course; but it was a fundamental tenet of his philosophy, that nature, even in the midst of her deviations, still retains her regularity.886 Or, as he elsewhere expresses it, deviation is, under certain circumstances, part of the law of nature.887

To generalize such irregularities, or, in other words, to show that they are not irregularities at all, was the main object of Hunter's life, and was the noblest part of his mission. Hence, notwithstanding his vast achievements in physiology, his favourite pursuit was pathology,888 where, the phenomena being more complex, the intellect has more play. In this great field, he studied the aberrations of structure and of function, in the vegetable, as well as in the animal, world;889 while, for the aberrations of form, which are the external manifestations of disturbed structure, he took into consideration the appearances presented by the mineral kingdom. There, the power of crystallization is the leading feature, and there, violations of symmetry constitute the essential disorder, whether the deformity of the crystal is subsequent to its production, or whether, being the result of what happened before its production, it is an original, and, if we may so say, congenital, defect. In either case, it is a deviation from the normal type, and, as such, is analogous to the monstrosities, both of animals and of vegetables.890 The mind of Hunter, by sweeping through this immense range of thought, attained to such commanding views of the philosophy of disease, that, in that department, he is certainly without a rival. As a physiologist, he was equalled, or perhaps excelled, by Aristotle; but as a pathologist, he stands alone, if we consider what pathology was when he found it, and what it was when he left it.891 Since his death, the rapid advance of morbid anatomy and of chemistry has caused some of his doctrines to be modified, and some of them to be overturned. This has been the work of inferior men, wielding superior chemical and microscopical resources. To say that the successors of John Hunter are inferior to him, is no disparagement to their abilities, since he was one of those extremely rare characters who only appear at very long intervals, and who, when they do appear, remodel the fabric of knowledge. They revolutionize our modes of thought; they stir up the intellect to insurrection; they are the rebels and demagogues of science. And though the pathologists of the nineteenth century have chosen a humbler path, this must not blind us to their merits, or prevent us from being grateful for what they have done. We cannot, however, be too often reminded, that the really great men, and those who are the sole permanent benefactors of their species, are not the great experimenters, nor the great observers, nor the great readers, nor the great scholars, but the great thinkers. Thought is the creator and vivifier of all human affairs. Actions, facts, and external manifestations of every kind, often triumph for a while; but it is the progress of ideas which ultimately determines the progress of the world. Unless these are changed, every other change is superficial, and every improvement is precarious. It is, however, evident that, in the present state of our knowledge, all ideas respecting nature must refer either to the normal or to the abnormal; that is to say, they must be concerned either with what is regular, uniform, and obedient to recognized principles, or else with what is irregular, perturbed, and disobedient. Of these two divisions, the first belongs to science; the second, to superstition. John Hunter formed the superb conception of merging both classes of ideas into one, by showing that nothing is irregular, that nothing is perturbed, that nothing is disobedient. Centuries, perhaps, may elapse before that conception will be consummated. But what Hunter effected towards it, places him at the head of all pathologists, ancient or modern. For, with him, the science of pathology did not mean the laws of disease in man alone, or even in all animals, or even in the whole organic kingdom; but it meant the laws of disease and of malformation in the entire material world, organic and inorganic. His great object was, to raise a science of the abnormal. He determined to contemplate nature as a vast and united whole, exhibiting, indeed, at different times different appearances, but preserving, amidst every change, a principle of uniform and uninterrupted order, admitting of no deviation, undergoing no disturbance, and presenting no real irregularity, albeit to the common eye, irregularities abound on every side.

As pathology was the science to which Hunter was most devoted, so also was it that in which his natural love of deduction was most apparent. Here, far more than in his physiological inquiries, do we find a desire to multiply original principles from which he could reason; in opposition to the inductive method, which always aims at diminishing these principles by gradual and successive analysis. Thus, for instance, in his animal pathology, he attempted to introduce, as an ultimate principle from which he could argue, the idea that all diseases move more rapidly towards the skin than towards internal parts, by virtue of some hidden force, which also obliges vegetables to approach the surface of the earth.892 Another favourite proposition, which he often used as a major premiss, and by its aid constructed deductively a pathological argument, was, that in no substance, be it what it may, can two processes go on in the same part at the same time.893 By applying this universal proposition to the more limited phenomena of animal life, he inferred that two general diseases cannot co-exist in the same individual; and he relied so much on this ratiocination, that he refused to credit any testimony by which it was impugned.894 There is reason to believe that his conclusion is erroneous, and that different diseases can so accompany each other, as to be united in the same individual, at the same time, and in the same part.895 Whether or not this be the case, it is equally interesting to notice the process of thought which led Hunter to bestow infinitely more pains in arguing from the general theory, than in arguing to it. Indeed, he can hardly be said to have argued to it at all, since he obtained it by a rough and hasty generalization from what seemed to be the obvious properties of inorganic matter. Having thus obtained it, he applied it to the pathological phenomena of the organic world, and especially of the animal world. That he should have adopted this course, is a curious proof of the energy of his deductive habits, and of the force of mind which enabled him so to set at naught the traditions of his English contemporaries, as to follow a method which, in the opinion of every one who surrounded him, was not only full of danger, but could never lead to truth.

Other parts of his pathology abound with similar instances, which show how anxious he was to assume principles on which he could build arguments. Of this kind were his ideas respecting sympathy, as connected with action. He suggested, that the simplest forms of sympathy would probably be found in the vegetable world, because there, the general arrangements are less intricate than in the animal world.896 On this supposition, he constructed a series of curious and refined speculations, of which, however, I must confine myself to giving a very short summary. As animals sympathize more than vegetables, this helps us to understand why it is that their movements are more numerous. For, sympathy, being a susceptibility to impression, is also a principle of action.897 Like other principles of action, it may be either natural or diseased.898 But, whichever it be, it can, in plants, have only one mode of development, because, in them, it can only be influenced by stimulus; while in animals, which have sensation, it has necessarily three modes, one from stimulus, one from sensation, and a third compounded of the other two.899 These are the largest divisions of sympathy, if we consider the organic world as a whole. In single cases, however, sympathy admits of still further subdivision. We may reason from it, in reference to the age of the individual;900 we may also reason from it in reference to temperament, since, in point of fact, temperament is nothing but susceptibility to action.901 And when sympathy is in action, we may, by analyzing our idea of it, reduce it to five different heads, and may classify it as continued, or contiguous, or remote, or similar, or dissimilar.902 All these supplied Hunter with principles from which, by reasoning deductively, he attempted to explain the facts of disease; for, according to him, disease merely consists in a want of combination of actions.903 By this process of thought, he was induced to neglect those predisposing causes, to which inductive pathologists pay great attention, and with which the works of his English contemporaries were much occupied. Such causes could only be generalized from observation, and Hunter made no account of them. Indeed, he even denies their real existence, and asserts that a predisposing cause is simply an increased susceptibility to form disposition to action.904

By reasoning from the twofold ideas of action and of sympathy, Hunter constructed the deductive or synthetic part of his pathology. This he did as a Scotchman, and to this, had he always lived in Scotland, he would probably have confined himself. But being for forty years surrounded by Englishmen, and having his mind impregnated by English habits, he contracted something of their mode of thought. We, accordingly, find that a considerable portion of his pathology is as inductive as the most eager disciple of Bacon could desire; forming, in this respect, a striking contrast to the purely synthetic method of Cullen, the other great pathologist of Scotland. In the attempt, however, which Hunter made to mix these two methods, he perplexed both himself and his readers. Hence that obscurity, which even his warmest admirers have noticed, though they have not perceived its cause. Vast as his powers were, he was unable to effect a complete union between induction and deduction. That this should have happened, will not surprise any one, who considers how some of the greatest thinkers have failed in this, the most difficult of all enterprises. Among the ancients, Plato failed in induction, and all his followers failed with him; since none of them have placed sufficient confidence in facts, and in the process of reasoning from particulars to generals. Among the moderns, Bacon was deficient in deduction, and every Baconian has been similarly deficient; it being the essential vice of that school to despise reasoning from general propositions, and to underrate the value of the syllogism. It may, indeed, be doubted if the history of the world supplies more than two instances of physical philosophers being as great in one form of investigation as in the other. They are Aristotle and Newton, who wielded each method with equal ease, combining the skill and boldness of deduction with the caution and perseverance of induction, masters alike of synthesis and of analysis, as capable of proceeding from generals to particulars, as from particulars to generals, sometimes making ideas precede facts, and sometimes making facts precede ideas, but never faltering, never doubting which course to take, and never allowing either scheme unduly to encroach on its opposite. That Hunter should be unable to perform this, merely proves that he was inferior to these two men, whose almost incredible achievements entitle them to be termed the prodigies of the human race. But what he did was wonderful, and, in his own department, has never been rivalled. Of the character and extent of his inquiries, I have given a sketch, which, notwithstanding its imperfections, may serve to illustrate the antagonism of the Scotch and English intellects, by showing how the methods peculiar to each nation struggled for mastery in that great mind, which was exposed to the action of both. Which method predominated in Hunter, it would be hard to say. But it is certain, that his understanding was troubled by their conflict. It is also certain, that, owing to his love of deduction, or of reasoning from general ideas, he exercised much less sway over his English contemporaries, than he would have done if he had exclusively followed their favourite method of reasoning from particular facts. Hence, the disproportion between his influence and his merits. As to his merits, it is now admitted that, in addition to his physiological discoveries, and the great pathological views which he propounded, we may trace to him nearly all the surgical improvements which were introduced within about forty years after his death.905 He was the first who explained, and, indeed, the first who recognized, the disease of inflammation of the veins, which is of frequent occurrence, and, under the name of phlebitis, has latterly been much studied, but which, before his time, had been ascribed to the most erroneous causes.906 On general inflammation, he threw so much light, that the doctrines which he advocated, and which were then ridiculed as whimsical novelties, are now taught in the schools, and have become part of the common traditions of the medical profession.907 He, moreover, introduced what is probably the most capital improvement in surgery ever effected by a single man; namely, the practice in aneurism of tying the artery at a distance from the seat of disease. This one suggestion has saved thousands of lives; and both the suggestion, and the first successful execution of it, are entirely owing to John Hunter, who, if he had done nothing else, would, on this account alone, have a right to be classed among the principal benefactors of mankind.908

848. I had intended giving some account of the once celebrated Brunonian system, which was founded by Dr. John Brown, who was first the pupil of Cullen, and afterwards his rival. But a careful perusal of his works has convinced me that the real basis of his doctrine, or the point from which he started, was not pathology, but therapeutics. His hasty division of all diseases into sthenic and asthenic, has no claim to be deemed a scientific generalization, but was a mere artificial arrangement, resulting from a desire to substitute a stimulating treatment in the place of the old lowering one. He, no doubt, went to the opposite extreme; but that being a purely practical subject, this Introduction has no concern with it. For the same reason, I omit all mention of Currie, who, though an eminent therapeutician, was a commonplace pathologist. That so poor and thinly-peopled a country as Scotland, should, in so short a period, have produced so many remarkable men, is extremely curious.
849. Mr. Ottley (Life of Hunter, p. 186) says, ‘In his writings we occasionally find an obscurity in the expression of his thoughts, a want of logical accuracy in his reasonings, and an incorrectness in his language, resulting from a deficient education.’ But, a deficient education will never make a man obscure. Neither will a good education make him lucid. The only cause of clearness of expression is clearness of thought; and clearness of thought is a natural gift, which the most finished and systematic culture can but slightly improve. Uneducated men, without a thousandth part of John Hunter's intellect, are often clear enough. On the other hand, it as frequently happens that men, who have received an excellent education, cannot speak or write ten consecutive sentences which do not contain some troublesome ambiguity. In Hunter's works such ambiguities are abundant; and this is probably one of the reasons why no one has yet given a connected view of his philosophy. On his obscurity, compare Cooper's Life of Sir Astley Cooper, London, 1843, vol. i. pp. 151, 152; Paget's Lectures on Surgical Pathology, London, 1853, vol. i. p. 419; and the remarks of his enemy, Foot, in Foot's Life of Hunter, London, 1794, p. 59.
850. He was born in 1728, and came to London in 1748. Adams' Life of John Hunter, 2nd edit. London, 1818, pp. 20, 203. According to Adams (pp. 30–35), he was abroad as surgeon in the English army from 1761 to 1763; though, in Foot's Life of Hunter, London, 1794, p. 78, he is said to have returned to England in 1762. Mr. Ottley says that he returned in 1763. Ottley's Life of Hunter, p. 22, in vol. i. of Hunter's Works, edited by Palmer, London, 1835.
851. See Buckle's History of Civilization, vol. ii. pp. 374, 375.
852. ‘He followed his natural inclination. He preferred the more delusive, apparently the more direct, road, which has seduced so many philosophers. He sought to arrive at the general laws of nature at once by conjecture: rather than, by a close and detailed study of her inferior operations, to ascend, step by step, through a slow and gradual induction to those laws which govern her general procedure.’ Babington's Preface to Hunter's Treatise on the Venereal Disease, in Hunter's Works, vol. ii. p. 129. Compare the narrow and carping criticism in Foot's Life of Hunter, p. 163.
853. That I may not be suspected of exaggeration, I will quote what by far the greatest of all the historians of medicine has said upon this subject. ‘La majorité des médecins qui prétendaient s'être formés d'après Bâcon, n'avaient hérité de lui qu'une répugnance invincible pour les hypothèses et les systèmes, une grande vénération pour l'expérience, et un désir extrême de multiplier le nombre des observations. Ce fut chez les Anglais que la méthode empirique en médecine trouva le plus de partisans, et c'est principalement aussi chez eux qu'elle s'est répandue jusqu'aux temps les plus rapprochés de nous. Sa propagation y fut favorisée, non-seulement par le profond respect que les Anglais continuent toujours de porter à l'immortel chancelier, mais encore par la haute importance que la nation entière attache au sens commun, common sense, et elle y demeura l'ennemie irréconciliable de tous les systèmes que ne reposent pas sur l'observation.’ Sprengel, Histoire de la Médecine, vol. v. p. 411, Paris, 1815.
854. Clive says, ‘Much as Mr. Hunter did, he thought still more. He has often told me, his delight was, to think.’ Abernethy's Hunterian Oration, London, 1819, p. 26.
855. Mr. Owen, in his interesting Preface to the fourth volume of Hunter's Works, says (p. vii.), ‘There is proof that Hunter anatomized at least five hundred different species of animals, exclusive of repeated dissections of different individuals of the same species, besides the dissections of plants to a considerable amount.’
856. ‘Some idea may be formed of Hunter's extraordinary diligence, by the fact, that his museum contained, at the time of his death, upwards of 10,000 preparations, illustrative of human and comparative anatomy, physiology, and pathology, and natural history.’ Weld's History of the Royal Society, London, 1848, vol. ii. p. 92.
857. ‘I have tested the conflicting evidence of these observers by dissection of the heart in the lobster; and you will perceive by this preparation that it is more complicated than even the Danish naturalist supposed, and fully bears out the opinion of Hunter in regard to the mixed nature of the circulation in the crustacea.’ Owen's Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals, 2nd edit. London, 1855, p. 318. ‘Cuvier, misled by the anomalous diffused condition of the venous system, supposed that there was no circulation of the blood in insects; yet the dorsal vessel was too conspicuous a structure to be overlooked. Such, however, was the authority of the great anatomist, that the nature of the heart began to be doubted, and the strangest functions to be attributed to it. Hunter, however, who was prepared to appreciate the true state of the circulating system in insects, by his discovery of the approximately diffused and irregular structure of the veins in the crustacea, has described, in his work on the blood, all the leading characters of the circulation in insects as it is recognized by comparative physiologists of the present day.’ Ibid. p. 383. Compare Hunter's Essays and Observations on Natural History, London, 1861, vol. i. p. 108.
858. ‘The class called Sepia has the organ of hearing, though somewhat differently constructed from what it is in fishes.’ An Account of the Organ of Hearing in Fishes, in Hunter‘s Works, vol. iv. p. 294. At the bottom of the page Mr. Owen observes, in a note, ‘This is the first announcement of the existence of an organ of hearing in the Cephalopoda.’
859. ‘Hunter discovered that the molluscous inhabitant of a shell had the power of absorbing part of its dwelling.’ Owen's Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals, London, 1855, p. 544. ‘Every shell-fish has the power of removing a part of its shell, so as to adapt the new and the old together, which is not done by any mechanical power, but by absorption.’ Anatomical Remarks on a New Marine Animal, in Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 469, edit. Palmer. In a note to this passage, it is said, that ‘the doctrine of the absorption of shell has been lately’ (i. e. in 1833) ‘adduced as a new discovery.’
860. ‘His keen observation did not fail to detect several errors which preceding naturalists had fallen into, especially with regard to the formation of the wax, which he proved to be secreted, not collected, by the animal.’ Ottley's Life of Hunter, p. 122. ‘The wax is formed by the bees themselves; it may be called an external secretion of oil, and I have found that it is formed between each scale of the under side of the belly.’ Observations on Bees, in Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 433.
861. ‘In the terminating part there are a number of perforations into the cochlea, and one into the semicircular canals, which afford a passage to the different divisions of the auditory nerve.’ Observations on the Structure and Œconomy of Whales, in Hunter's Works, vol. iv. pp. 383, 384. ‘The semicircular canals of the cetacea, described by Hunter in the paper on Whales, a structure which Cuvier rightly states that Camper overlooked, but incorrectly claims the discovery as his own.’ Preface to vol. iv. of Hunter's Works, p. xxi.
862. Dr. Adams, in his somewhat hasty Life of Hunter, says (pp. 27, 28), ‘Mr. Hewson always claimed the discovery of lymphatics in birds.’ But the truth is, that Hewson never claimed it. He says, ‘It may be necessary to mention here, that the dispute between Dr. Monro and me is, who first discovered the lacteals of birds? for as to the lymphatics in their necks (mentioned in this gentleman's note), these we both allow were discovered by Mr. John Hunter, about ten years ago.’ And, again, ‘These lymphatics in the necks of fowls were first discovered by Mr. John Hunter.’ Hewson's Works, edit. Gulliver (Sydenham Soc.), pp. 102, 145.
863. Hunter's Works, vol. iv. pp. xxi. 176.
864. ‘See Nos. 3731, 3734, 3735, in the Physiological series of the Hunterian Museum, in which there are evidences that Mr. Hunter had anticipated most of the anatomical discoveries which have subsequently been made upon the embryo of the Kangaroo.’ Rymer Jones' Organization of the Animal Kingdom, London, 1855, pp. 829, 830.
865. ‘The muscularity of arteries, of which John Hunter made physiological proof, is now a matter of eyesight.’ Simon's Pathology, London, 1850, p. 69. ‘To prove the muscularity of an artery, it is only necessary to compare its action with that of elastic substances.’ … ‘When the various uses of arteries are considered, such as their forming different parts of the body out of the blood, their performing the different secretions, their allowing at one time the blood to pass readily into the smaller branches, as in blushing, and at another, preventing it altogether, as in paleness from fear: and if to these we add the power of producing a diseased increase of any or every part of the body, we cannot but conclude that they are possessed of muscular powers.’ Hunter's Works, vol. iii. p. 157. See also vol. iv. p. 254. Mr. Gulliver, in his edition of Hewson's Works, London, 1846, says (p. 125), that Hunter's ‘experiments on the functions of the arteries are supported by the latest and best observations on their structure.’
866. ‘The fact of the muscularity of the iris, which is here presumed from analogy by Mr. Hunter, has been since directly proved by the observations of Bauer and Jacob (Phil. Trans. 1822), and indirectly by Berzelius, who found that the iris possesses all the chemical properties of muscle.’ Palmer's note in Hunter's Works, vol. iii. p. 146, London, 1837.
867. Adams' Life of Hunter, pp. 59, 60, 245. Hunter's Works, vol. i. p. 43, vol. iv. pp. 116–121. Watson's Principles of Physic, vol. ii. p. 440.
868. ‘Hunter subjects the blood to both mechanical and chemical analysis, and endeavours to determine the characteristic properties of its different constituents.’ Owen's Preface to vol. iv. of Hunter's Works, p. xii. But this gives, perhaps, rather too high an idea of his animal chemistry; for such was then the miserable state of this extremely important branch of knowledge, that he arrived at the conclusion that ‘blood gives no analysis excepting that of common animal matter.’ Principles of Surgery, chap. iii. in Hunter's Works, vol. i. p. 229.
869. ‘In seeking to determine the respective importance of the different constituents of the blood, by the philosophical and most difficult inquiry into their respective periods of formation in the development of the embryo, Hunter made the interesting discovery that the vessels of the embryo of a red-blooded animal circulated in the first instance colourless blood, as in the invertebrate animals. ‘The red globules,’ he observes, ‘seemed to be formed later in life than the other two constituents, for we see while the chick is in the egg the heart beating, and it then contains a transparent fluid before any red globules are formed, which fluid we may suppose to be the serum and the lymph.’ I well remember the feelings of surprise with which I listened, while at Paris in 1832, to a memoir read before the Academy of Science, by MM. Delpech and Coste, the object of which was the announcement of the same fact as a novel and important discovery. The statement of the French observers was received with all the consideration which its importance justly merited, without its being suspected that our great physiologist had, half a century before, embraced it, with all its legitimate deductions, in the extended circle of his investigations.’ Owen's Preface to vol. iv. of Hunter's Works, p. xiii.
870. Indeed, if we may rely on the references recently given by Mr. Gulliver, which, from his great general accuracy, there seems no reason to question, the fact that the pale blood precedes the red, was known even in the time of Glisson. See Gulliver's learned edition of Hewson's Works, London, 1846, p. 222. But, to the contemporaries of Glisson, such a fact was isolated, and consequently useless. Nothing is valuable while it appears to stand alone.
871. ‘From the above account, it appears that whatever may be their utility in the machine, the red globules certainly are not of such universal use as the coagulating lymph, since they are not to be found in all animals, nor so early in those that have them; nor are they pushed into the extreme arteries, where we must suppose the coagulating lymph reaches; neither do they appear to be so readily formed. This being the case, we must conclude them not to be the important part of the blood in contributing to growth, repair, &c. Their use would seem to be connected with strength.’ A Treatise on the Blood, Inflammation, and Gunshot Wounds, in Hunter's Works, vol. iii. p. 68. In another remarkable passage, he touches on the possibility of an increase in the amount of red globules being connected with an increase in the amount of heat. ‘I will not pretend to determine how far this may assist in keeping up the animal heat.’ Observations on the Structure and Œconomy of Whales, in Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 364.
872. The evidence of this is collected in the notes to Buckle's History of Civilization, vol. i. pp. 58–61.
873. ‘According to Lecanu, temperament has an influence upon the composition of the blood. He infers from his analyses that the blood of lymphatic persons is poorer in solid constituents, and especially in blood corpuscules, than that of persons of sanguineous temperament, while the quantity of albumen is much the same in both.’ Simon's Animal Chemistry with reference to the Physiology and Pathology of Man, London, 1845, vol. i. p. 236. Compare Thomson's Chemistry of Animal Bodies, Edinburgh, 1843, p. 370.
874. Simon's Animal Chemistry, vol. i. pp. 234, 235. Subsequent experiments have confirmed this. ‘The proportion of red globules dried to 1000 parts of blood, is in healthy males estimated at 127 parts by Andral and Gavarret; lower and higher figures have been given by other analysts, but this probably is the result of somewhat different modes of proceeding. In females the proportion of globules is lower. Becquerel and Rodier make the difference to be about 15 parts per 1000.’ Jones and Sieveking's Pathological Anatomy, London, 1854, p. 23. Hence, the greater specific gravity of male blood. See the interesting results of Dr. Davy's experiments in Davy's Physiological and Anatomical Researches, London, 1839, vol. ii. p. 32.
875. Hunter died in 1793. The researches of Lecanu were published in 1831. Another, and still more remarkable proof of the extent to which Hunter outstripped his own age, appears in the following passage, which has just been published in his posthumous works, and in which he anticipates the grandest and most suggestive of all the ideas belonging to the physiology of the nineteenth century. ‘If we were capable of following the progress of increase of the number of the parts of the most perfect animal, as they first formed 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 the 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 most perfect.’ Essays and Observations by John Hunter, being his Posthumous Papers, London, 1861, vol. i. p. 203.
876. ‘The natural salutary actions, arising from stimuli, take place both in animals and vegetables, and may be divided into three kinds. The first kind of action, or self-motion, is employed simply in the economical operations, by which means the immediate functions are carried on, and the necessary operations performed, with the materials the animal or vegetable is in possession of, such as growth, support, secretion, &c. The blood is disposed of by the actions of the vessels, according to their specific stimulus, producing all the above effects. The juices of a plant are disposed of according to the different actions of the sap-vessels, arising also from their specific stimulus, which is different from that of blood-vessels, but equally produces growth; but a vine will grow twenty feet in one summer, while a whale, probably, does not grow so much in as many years.’ Croonian Lectures on Muscular Motion, in Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 199.
877. ‘The second kind of action is in pursuit of external influence, and arises from a compound of internal and external stimulus; it is excited by the state of the animal or vegetable, which gives the stimulus of want, and being completed by external stimulus, produces the proper supplies of nourishment. It produces motions of whole parts: thus we see the Hedysarum gyrans moving its lesser foliola. This is an action apparently similar to breathing in animals, though, perhaps, it does not answer the same purpose; yet there is an alternate motion in both.’ Croonian Lectures, in Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 200.
878. ‘The third kind of motion is from external stimulus, and consists principally of the motion of whole parts, which is not inconsiderable in vegetables, as in the Dionæa muscipula and Mimosa pudica is very evident.’ … ‘These actions are similar to what arise in many animals from external stimulus.’ Ibid. vol. iv. p. 201.
879. ‘I make a material difference between the power and the quantity of action. Some motions may be very small, yet act with great force; while others are of considerable extent, although very weak.’ Ibid. vol. iv. p. 204.
880. ‘The immediate cause of motion in all vegetables is most probably the same, and it is probably the same in all animals; but how far they are the same in both classes, has not yet been determined. But I think it will appear, in the investigation of this subject, that vegetables and animals have actions evidently common to both, and that the causes of these actions are apparently the same in both; and most probably there is not an action in the vegetable, which does not correspond or belong to the animal, although the mode of action in the parts may not be the same, or muscular, in both.’ Croonian Lectures, in Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 196. Compare the section ‘Of Motion in Vegetables,’ in Hunter's Essays, London, 1861, vol. i. p. 24.
881. ‘The variety of motions is greater in animals, and more purposes are answered by them.’ … ‘The first kind of action appears to be stronger in its power, although less in quantity, in vegetables than in animals; for a small vine was capable of sustaining, and even of raising, a column of sap 43 feet high, while a horse's heart was only capable of supporting a column of blood 8 feet 9 inches high; both of which columns must have been supported by the action of the internal parts, for we must suppose the heart equal, or nearly so, to the strength or action of the other parts of the vascular system; and when we consider that the sap of the tallest tree must be supported, and even raised from the root to the most distant branches, it must appear that the power of such vegetables far exceeds the power of any animal, and, indeed, it is such as the texture of a vegetable only can support. The power of supporting a leaf erect for a whole day is as great an effort of action as that of the elevator palpebrarum muscle of the eye of an animal.’ Hunter's Works, vol. iv. pp. 203, 204. See also Hunter's Essays, vol. i. p. 342: ‘It is probable that the vegetable which can the least bear a suspension of its actions, can do so more than the animal which can bear it longest.’
882. Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 255.
883. In his Principles of Surgery, he says (Hunter's Works, vol. i. p. 220), ‘The human body is what I mean chiefly to treat of; but I shall often find it necessary to illustrate some of the propositions which I shall lay down from animals of an inferior order, in whom the principles may be more distinct and less blended with others, or where the parts are differently constructed, in order to show, from many varieties of structure, and from many different considerations, what are the uses of the same parts in man; or, at least, to show that they are not for the uses which have been commonly assigned to them; and, as man is the most complicated part of the whole animal creation, it will be proper, in the first place, to point out general principles, common to all this species of matter, that I may be better understood when I come to the more complicated machine, namely, the human.’
884. ‘Before we endeavour to give an idea of an animal, it is necessary to understand the properties of that matter of which an animal is composed; but the better to understand animal matter, it is necessary to understand the properties of common matter; else we shall be often applying our ideas of common matter, which are familiar to us, to animal matter, an error hitherto too common, but which we should carefully avoid.’ Principles of Surgery, in Hunter's Works, vol. i. p. 211. ‘In the natural history of vegetables and animals, therefore, it will be necessary to go back to the first or common matter of this globe, and give its general properties; then see how far these properties are introduced into the vegetable and animal operations; or rather, perhaps, how far they are of use or subservient to their actions.’ Hunter's Essays, vol. i. p. 4. ‘Every property in man is similar to some property, either in another animal, or probably in a vegetable, or even in inanimate matter. Thereby (man) becomes classible with those in some of his parts.’ Ibid. p. 10.
885. He made ‘a valuable collection of crystallizations, both of regular and irregular forms, which he was accustomed to use in his lectures to exemplify the difference between the laws which regulate the growth of organic and the increase of inorganic bodies.’ Ottley's Life of Hunter, p. 138.
886. ‘Nature is always uniform in her operations, and when she deviates is still regular in her deviations.’ Principles of Surgery, in Hunter's Works, vol. i. p. 485; see also vol. iv. pp. 44, 45.
887. ‘It certainly may be laid down, as one of the principles or laws of nature, to deviate under certain circumstances.’ Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 278.
888. Dr. Adams, who knew him personally, says that he studied ‘physiology, more particularly as connected with pathology.’ Adams' Life of Hunter, p. 77.
889. His Principles of Surgery contain some curious evidence of his desire to establish a connexion between animal and vegetable pathology. See, for instance, his remarks on ‘local diseases’ (Works, vol. i. p. 341); on the influence of the seasons in producing diseases (vol. i. pp. 345, 346); and on the theory of inflammation exhibited in an oak-leaf (vol. i. p. 391). But even now, too little is known of the diseases of the vegetable world to enable their study to be incorporated with the science of the diseases of the animal world; and, in the time of Hunter, the attempt was still less promising. Still, the effort shows the grandeur and range of the man's mind; and though little was effected, the method was right. So, too, in one of his essays on the Power of Producing Heat, he says, ‘In the course of a variety of experiments on animals and vegetables, I have frequently observed that the result of experiments in the one has explained the economy of the other, and pointed out some principle common to both.’ Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 136.
890. ‘Nature being pretty constant in the kind and number of the different parts peculiar to each species of animal, as also in the situation, formation, and construction of such parts, we call every thing that deviates from that uniformity a “monster,” whether (it occur in) crystallization, vegetation, or animalization. There must be some principle for those deviations from the regular course of nature, in the economy of such species as they occur in. In the present inquiry it is the animal creation I mean to consider. Yet, as there may be in some degree an analogy between all the three (kingdoms of nature), I shall consider the other two, so far as this analogy seems to take place.’ … ‘Monsters are not peculiar to animals: they are less so in them, perhaps, than in any species of matter. The vegetable (kingdom) abounds with monsters; and perhaps the uncommon formation of many crystals may be brought within the same species of production, and accounted for upon the same principle, viz. some influence interfering with the established law of regular formation. Monsters in crystals may arise from the same cause, as mentioned in the “Introduction;” viz. either a wrong arrangement of the parts of which the crystal is to be composed, or a defect in the formation, from the first setting out being wrong, and (the formation) going on in the same (wrong) line. The principle of crystallization is in the solution; yet it requires more to set it agoing, or into action, such, e. g., as a solid surface. The deficiency in the production of a true crystal may be in the solution itself; or, I can conceive, that a very slight circumstance might alter the form of a crystal, and even give the disposition for one (crystal) to form upon another. Quickness in the progress of crystallization produces irregularity and diminution in size.’ Hunter's Essays, London, 1861, vol. i. pp. 239–241. The reader must remember, that, when these remarks were written, the phenomena of crystallization had not been subjected to that exact mathematical treatment which subsequently revealed so many of their laws. Indeed, the goniometer was then so coarse an instrument, that it was impossible to measure the angles of crystals with accuracy.
891. Abernethy says, ‘He appears to me as a new character in our profession; and, briefly to express his peculiar merit, I may call him the first and great physionosologist, or expositor of the nature of disease.’ Abernethy's Hunterian Oration, p. 29, London, 1819. ‘He may be regarded as the first who applied the great truths of anatomical and physiological science to these most important subjects, by tracing the processes which nature employs in the construction of organic changes, in building up new formations, and in repairing the effects of injury or disease.’ Hodgson's Hunterian Oration, 1855, p. 32.
892. ‘The specific qualities in diseases also tend more rapidly to the skin than to the deeper-seated parts, except the cancer; although, even in this disease, the progress towards the superficies is more quick than its progress towards the centre.’ … ‘In short, this is a law of nature, and it probably is upon the same principle by which vegetables always approach the surface of the earth.’ A Treatise on the Blood, Inflammation, and Gunshot Wounds, in Hunter's Works, vol. iii. p. 285. ‘Granulations always tend to the skin, which is exactly similar to vegetation, for plants always grow from the centre of the earth towards the surface; and this principle was taken notice of when we were treating of abscesses coming towards the skin.’ Ibid. pp. 489, 490.
893. ‘It may be admitted as an axiom, that two processes cannot go on at the same time in the same part of any substance.’ Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 96. Compare Hunter's Essays, vol. ii. p. 333: ‘As it appears, in general, that Nature can hardly make one part perform two actions with advantage.’
894. ‘Thus, we hear of pocky itch and of scurvy and the venereal disease combined; but this supposition appears to me to be founded in error. I have never seen any such cases, nor do they seem to be consistent with the principles of morbid action in the animal economy. It appears to me beyond a doubt that no two actions can take place in the same constitution, or in the same part, at one and the same time.’ Hunter's Works, vol. ii. p. 132. ‘As I reckon every operation in the body an action, whether universal or partial, it appears to me beyond a doubt that no two actions can take place in the same constitution, nor in the same part, at one and the same time; the operations of the body are similar in this respect to actions or motions in common matter. It naturally results from this principle, that no two different fevers can exist in the same constitution, nor two local diseases in the same part, at the same time. There are many local diseases which have dispositions totally different, but having very similar appearances, have been supposed by some to be one sort of disease, by others to be a different kind, and by others again a compound of two diseases.’ … ‘These, therefore, are often supposed to be mixed, and to exist in the same part. Thus we hear of a pocky-scurvy, a pocky-itch, rheumatic-gout, &c. &c., which names, according to my principle, imply a union that cannot possibly exist.’ Ibid. vol. iii. pp. 3, 4.
895. Dr. Robert Williams (Encyclopædia of the Medical Sciences, London, 1847, 4to, p. 688) says, ‘The diagnosis between gout and rheumatism is often exceedingly difficult, so much so that nosologists have given a mixed class, or rheumatic gout. Mr. Hunter warmly opposed this compound appellation, for, in his opinion, no two distinct diseases, or even distinct diatheses, can co-exist in the same constitution; a law, it must be admitted, to have many exceptions.’ Compare Watson's Principles and Practice of Physic, London, 1857, vol. i. p. 312; ‘acting upon the aphorism of John Hunter (an aphorism, however, which requires some qualification), that two diseases or actions cannot go on in a part at the same time.’ According to another authority, ‘There can be little doubt that two or more zymotic processes do often go on simultaneously in the blood and body; a fact of profound interest to the pathologist, and worthy of attentive investigation.’ Report on the Public Health for 1847, in Journal of the Statistical Society, vol. xi. p. 168, London, 1848. See also, on the co-existence of specific poisons, Erichsen's Surgery, 2nd edit., London, 1857, p. 430. Mr. Paget, in his striking and eminently suggestive Lectures on Pathology, London, 1853, vol. ii. pp. 537, 538, has made some interesting remarks on one part of the theory of co-existence; and his observations, so far as they go, tend to corroborate Hunter's view. He has put very forcibly the antagonism between cancer and other specific diseases; and especially between the cancerous diathesis and the tuberculous.
896. ‘The most simple sympathy is perhaps to be found in vegetables, these being much more simple than the most simple animal.’ Principles of Surgery, in Hunter's Works, vol. i. p. 327.
897. ‘This principle of action, called sympathy,’ &c. Ibid. vol. i. p. 318.
898. ‘Sympathy may be divided into two kinds, the natural and the diseased.’ Principles of Surgery, in Hunter's Works, vol. i. p. 320; see also A Treatise on the Blood, Inflammation, &c., in Works, vol. iii. p. 6.
899. Croonian Lectures on Muscular Motion, in Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 207; and exactly the same words in his Phytology, in Hunter's Essays, London, 1861, vol. i. p. 361.
900. ‘Local or partial sympathy is found more in old than in young; whereas universal sympathy is more in young than in old. Sympathy is less determined in young persons, every part being then ready to sympathize with other parts under disease.’ … ‘As the child advances, the power of sympathy becomes partial, there not being now, in the constitution, that universal consent of parts, but some part, which has greater sympathy than the rest, falls into the whole irritation; therefore the whole disposition to sympathy is directed to some particular part. The different organs acquire more and more of their own independent actions as the child grows older.’ Hunter's Works, vol. i. pp. 322, 323.
901. ‘Susceptibilities for dispositions and actions appear to me to be the same with what are usually understood by temperament. Temperament is the state of the body fitting it for the disposition or action it is then in.’ Hunter's Works, vol. i. p. 307.
902. Hunter's Works, vol. iii. p. 393.
903. ‘As every natural action of the body depends, for its perfection, on a number of circumstances, we are led to conclude, that all the various combining actions are established while the body is in health, and well disposed; but this does not take place in diseased actions, for disease, on the contrary, consists in the want of this very combination.’ Hunter's Works, vol. iii. p. 10. Compare vol. i. p. 310: ‘I have explained that a disease is a disposition for a wrong action, and that the action is the immediate effect of the disposition, and that either the actions or the effects of those actions, produce the symptoms which are generally called the disease; such as sensations, which are commonly pain of all kinds, sickness, alteration visible or invisible in the structure of the part or parts that act, and sympathy.’
904. ‘There is no such thing, strictly speaking, as a predisposing cause. What is commonly understood by a predisposing cause is an increased susceptibility to form disposition to action. When I say I am predisposed for such and such actions, it is only that I am very susceptible of such and such impressions.’ Hunter's Works, vol. i. p. 303. See also p. 301: ‘The most simple idea I can form of an animal being capable of disease is, that every animal is endued with a power of action, and a susceptibility of impression, which impression forms a disposition, which disposition may produce action, which action becomes the immediate sign of the disease; all of which will be according to the nature of the impression and of the part impressed.’
905. Hunter died in 1793. In 1835, Mr. Palmer writes: ‘Those who have traced the progress of modern surgery to its true source, will not fail to have discerned, in the principles which Hunter established, the germs of almost all the improvements which have been since introduced.’ Hunter's Works, vol. i. p. vii. Eighteen years later, Mr. Paget says of Hunter's views respecting the healing of injuries: ‘In these sentences, Mr. Hunter has embodied the principle on which is founded the whole practice of subcutaneous surgery; a principle of which, indeed, it seems hardly possible to exaggerate the importance.’ Paget's Lectures on Surgical Pathology, London, 1853, vol. i. p. 170. At pp. 197, 198: ‘After what I have said respecting the process of immediate union, it may appear that Mr. Hunter was more nearly right than his successors.’
906. ‘Inflammation of the veins, originally studied by Hunter, has of late years attracted the attention of many distinguished Continental and British pathologists.’ Erichsen's Surgery, London, 1857, p. 475. ‘No subject more amply illustrates the essential services which the science and art of medicine have derived from pathological anatomy than that of phlebitis. By this study many a dark point in the phenomena of disease has been either thoroughly elucidated, or, at all events, rendered more comprehensible. We need only refer to the so-termed malignant intermittents, consequent upon wounds and surgical operations, – to certain typhoid conditions, puerperal diseases, and the like, John Hunter, the elder Meckel, and Peter Frank, were the first to commence the investigation.’ Hasse's Anatomical Description of the Diseases of the Organs of Circulation and Respiration, London, 1846, p. 10. ‘Hunter was the first to open the way, and since that period the scalpel has shown that many previously unintelligible malignant conditions are attributable to phlebitis.’ Jones and Sieveking's Pathological Anatomy, London, 1854, p. 362. On the application of this discovery to the theory of inflammation of the spleen, see Rokitansky's Pathological Anatomy, vol. ii. p. 173, London, 1849; compare vol. iv. p. 335.
907. Sir Benjamin Brodie says: ‘It is true that the essential parts of John Hunter's doctrines as to inflammation and its consequences are now so incorporated with what is taught in the schools, that to be acquainted with them you need not seek them in his works; but I recommend you, nevertheless, to make these your especial study, for the sake of the other valuable information which they contain, and the important views in physiology and pathology which, in almost every page, are offered to your contemplation.’ Brodie's Lectures on Pathology and Surgery, London, 1846, p. 25. ‘John Hunter, whose treatise on Inflammation is a mine in which all succeeding writers have dug.’ Watson's Principles and Practice of Physic, London, 1857, vol. i. p. 146. ‘The appeal to philosophical principles in Hunter's works was, indeed, the cause of their being a closed volume to his less enlightened contemporaries; but, though the principles implied or expressed, subjected them to the scorn and neglect of those less imbued with the spirit of philosophy, the results of those principles, verified as they were by facts, have gradually and insensibly forced themselves on the conviction of the profession; and though adopted silently, and without acknowledgment, as if the authors themselves had forgotten or were ignorant from whence they were derived, they now form the very groundwork of all books, treatises, and lectures on professional subjects.’ Green's Vital Dynamics, London, 1840, p. 81. Finally, I will quote the very recent testimony of Mr. Simon, who, in his masterly, and singularly beautiful, essay on Inflammation, has not only brought together nearly every thing which is known on that interesting subject, but has shown himself to be possessed of powers of generalization rare in the medical profession, or, indeed, in any other profession. ‘Without undue partiality, an Englishman may be glad to say that the special study of Inflammation dates from the labours of John Hunter. An indefatigable observer of nature, untrammelled by educational forms, and thoroughly a sceptic in his method of study, this large-minded surgeon of ours went to work at inflammation with a full estimate of the physiological vastness of his subject. He saw that, in order to understand inflammation, he must regard it, not as one solitary fact of disease, but in connexion with kindred phenomena – some of them truly morbid in their nature, but many of them within the limits of health. He saw that, for any one who would explain inflammation, all inequalities of blood supply, all periodicities of growth, all actions of sympathy, were part of the problem to be solved.’ … ‘He cannot be understood without more reflection than average readers will give; and only they who are content to struggle through a veil of obscure language, up to the very reality of his intent, can learn with how great a master they are communing.’ … ‘Doubtless, he was a great discoverer. But it is for the spirit of his labours, even more than for the establishment of new doctrine, that English surgery is for ever indebted to him. Of facts in pathology, he may, perhaps, be no permanent teacher; but to the student of medicine he must always be a noble pattern. Emphatically, it may be said of him, that he was the physiological surgeon. Others, before him (Galen, for instance, eminently), had been at once physiologists and practitioners; but science, in their case, had come little into contact with practice. Never had physiology been so incorporated with surgery, never been so applied to the investigation of disease and the suggestion of treatment, as it was by this master-workman of ours. And to him, so far as such obligations can be personal, we assuredly owe it that, for the last half-century, the foundations of English surgery have, at least professedly, been changing from a basis of empiricism to a basis of science.’ Simon on Inflammation, in A System of Surgery, edited by T. Holmes, London, 1860, vol. i. pp. 134–136.
908. Mr. Bowman, in his Principles of Surgery (Encyclopædia of the Medical Sciences, London, 4to, 1847) says (p. 831): ‘Before the time of Hunter, the operation was performed by cutting into the sac of the aneurism, and tying the vessel above and below. So formidable was this proceeding in its consequences, that amputation of the limb was frequently preferred, as a less dangerous and fatal measure. The genius of Hunter led him to tie the femoral artery, in a case of popliteal aneurism, leaving the tumour untouched. The safety and efficacy of this mode of operating have now been fully established, and the principle has been extended to all operations for the cure of this formidable disease.’ See also p. 873; Paget's Surgical Pathology, vol. i. pp. 36, 37; and Erichsen's Surgery, pp. 141, 142, 508, 509.