The Case Book of John Hunter FRS - Hardcover

John Hunter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 185315203X ISBN 13: 9781853152030

Publisher: Royal Society of Medicine Press Ltd

Synopsis

At the age of 20, John Hunter was invited by his elder brother William, a physician and obstetrician, to assist him at his anatomy school in London, where he spent much time working on his own anatomical investigations. During this period he also studied surgery at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, and later at St Bartholomew's. In 1760 he was commissioned as an Army Surgeon, and was posted to France and Portugal where he undertook a geological study from which he deduced that the world was "many hundred thousand centuries" old, thus contradicting the accepted estimate of not more than 6000 years. He also anticipated some of Darwin's ideas on evolution. In 1763 he gained the Diplomas of the Company of Surgeons and joined the staff at St George's Hospital. Although continuing his biological studies, his private practice grew steadily and he started teaching. The purchase of a large house in Leicester Square enabled him to take resident pupils, and arrange his many specimens into a systematic teaching museum. Although a surgeon, Hunter regarded surgery as a mutilation of the patient and an admission of failure to cure. He told his students, "Surgeons tend to forget that they are not masters but only servants. They can assist the natural powers within all living flesh but cannot replace them". Hunter's practice was quite wide - many patients were inoperable and therefore received only medical attention rather than surgical. The case notes - some 847 separate records - give an insight into the health of Londoners of the period. Although a few of the more well-known patients and spectacular cases have been referred to in medical articles, the full records have never before been published. Hunter's original case notes were transcribed by his brother William (with his own notes) into five separate volumes in 1826. In this book, they are bound in a single volume, transcribed - along with Clift's commentary - by the curator of the Hunterian Museum, Elizabeth Allen, at The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The book is also available in a half-leather bound limited edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Royal Society of Medicine Press Ltd
• ISBN 10: 185315203X
• ISBN 13: 9781853152030
• Binding: Hardcover
• Editor: Elizabeth Allen