John Hunter (surgeon)

He spent some years as an Army surgeon, worked with the dentist James Spence conducting tooth transplants, and in 1764 set up his own anatomy school in London.

[7] However, persons who have studied life in Georgian London agree that the number of pregnant women who died in London during the years of Hunter's and Smellie's work was not particularly high for that locality and time; the prevalence of pre-eclampsia – a common condition affecting 10% of all pregnancies, and one which is easily treated today, but for which no treatment was known in Hunter's time – would more than suffice to explain a mortality rate that seems suspiciously high to 21st-century readers.

Hunter also studied with Marie Marguerite Bihéron, a famous anatomist and wax modeller teaching in London; some of the illustrations in his text were likely hers.

[12] Hunter left the Army in 1763, and spent at least five years working in partnership with James Spence, a well-known London dentist.

Living in an age when physicians frequently experimented on themselves, he was the subject of an often-repeated legend claiming that he had inoculated himself with gonorrhea, using a needle that was unknowingly contaminated with syphilis.

Because of Hunter's reputation, knowledge concerning the true nature of gonorrhoea and syphilis was set back, and his theory was not proved to be wrong until 51 years later through research by French physician Philippe Ricord.

[20] Hunter bribed a member of the funeral party (possibly for £500) and filled the coffin with rocks at an overnight stop, then subsequently published a scientific description of the anatomy and skeleton.

"He is now, after having being stolen on the way to his funeral," says legal scholar Thomas Muinzer of the University of Stirling, "on display permanently as a sort of freak exhibit in the memorial museum to the person who screwed him over, effectively.

[24] Hunter's death in 1793 was due to a heart attack brought on by an argument at St George's Hospital concerning the admission of students.

He was originally buried at St Martin-in-the-Fields, but in 1859 was reburied in the north aisle of the nave in Westminster Abbey,[25] reflecting his importance to the country.

[26] Hunter's character has been discussed by biographers: His nature was kindly and generous, though outwardly rude and repelling.... Later in life, for some private or personal reason, he picked a quarrel with the brother who had formed him and made a man of him, basing the dissension upon a quibble about priority unworthy of so great an investigator.

Hunter helped to improve understanding of human teeth, bone growth and remodelling, inflammation, gunshot wounds, venereal diseases, digestion, the functioning of the lacteals, child development, the separateness of maternal and foetal blood supplies, and the role of the lymphatic system.

WHEN we stand before the bust of John Hunter, or as we enter the magnificent museum furnished by his labours, and pass slowly, with meditative observation through this august temple, which the genius of one great man has raised and dedicated to the wisdom and uniform working of the Creator, we perceive at every step the guidance, we had almost said, the inspiration, of those profound ideas concerning Life, which dawn upon us, indeed, through his written works, but which he has here presented to us in a more perfect language than that of words – the language of God himself, as uttered by Nature.

In Imogen Robertson's 2009 novel, Instruments of Darkness, anatomist Gabriel Crowther advises an acquaintance to seek refuge at his friend Hunter's home for the young Earl of Sussex's party from deadly pursuers released during the Gordon Riots; leopards in Hunter's menagerie killed the would-be assassins, and he envisaged their bodies' dissection.

[36] In Jessie Greengrass's novel, Sight, she intercuts her story with the biography of Hunter and other scientists who have dedicated their lives to analysing light and transparency.

A statue of John Hunter, Scottish National Portrait Gallery
A plaster cast medallion of John Hunter, Science Museum, London
A bust of Hunter near where he lived in Leicester Square , London