4
Hunterian Festival, I978
ruary. On i4th February a Fornmal Reception is being held at the College and on I5th February the Rt Hon. the Lord Wolfenden CBE will give the Hunterian Anniversary Oration entitled 'Hunter, Hippocrates, and humanity' in the Great Hall of Lincoln's Inn. Thursday i6th February is the day set aside for a symposium on 'Inflammation' arranged by the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, a subject close to Hunter and today featuring prostaglandins, SRS-A, immunopharmacology, delayed hypersensitivity, and macrophages. Also in the afternoon of this day there will be an exhibition of Hunteriana in Hunter's hospital, St George's at Hyde Park Corner. On Friday 17th February the Surgical Research Society is holding a symposium at the College on 'The scientific basis of the management of injury, wounds, and ulcers in the twentieth century', and the day will end with the Faculty of Dental Surgery Webb-Johnson Lecture by Mr B W Fickling CBE entitled 'The marches of dentistry'.
enough to be involved in the everyday life of the College and its work are presented with many opportunities to know Hunter and what his life and work stand for todlay. But there are many thousands whose location, practice, and other circumstances do not readily foster an understanding of or enthusiasm for Hunter and especially the adopted title of 'Patron saint of the College'. Naturally reference to the biographies on Hunter may serve to put things right for those to whom library facilities are readily available, but few have the time in a life of heavy clinical practice to search for the material required and to sit back and digest it. Therefore while the anniversary is in mind the Annals is including herewith the short biographical note and the interpretation of the work of Hunter and its relation to the work of the College today which are featured in the special Appeal brochure prepared for the occasion. The brochure is an attractive presentation and it is hoped that through it Fellows, Members, and friends of the College may be able to stimulate in the general public an ever-widening interest in the work, welfare, Those Fellows, Members, and friends of the financial independence, and future of the College who are near enough and fortunate College.
John Hunter 1728-1793 John Hunter was born during the night of I3th-i4th February I728 at East Kilbride, Scotland. He had little schooling, but he had an insatiable appetite for natural history and research and spent his whole life eagerly searching for knowledge. From I748 John spent ii years working at his brother William's anatomy school in London. During this period he studied surgery with such notable London surgeons as William Cheselden and Percivall Pott and also did vital research. A period of ill-health led to three years Army service in Belle Isle and Portugal during the Seven Years War. He began collecting animal and plant specimens which were the foundation of his unique museum, eventually to number 13 682 specimens. That
museum, despite damage in World War II, is still the jewvel of this Royal College. John Hunter's greatest development followed his Army life. He was elected a Fellolw of the Royal Society in 1767 and appointed surgeon to St George's Hospital in the following year. Thenceforward he regularly had resident students as house pupils for five-year periods. Despite his busy practice and heavy teaching commitment John spent many hours daily in research on his museum specimens. He wrote highly original papers, notably on the human teeth (which revolutionised dentistry), the blood, inflammation and gunshot wounds, the descent of the testis, the physiology of digestion, the repair of tendons, venereal disease, and many other subjects.
Hunterian Festival, I978 John's work on the development of collateral circulation in the deer's antler following blockage of the main artery he later applied in the treatment of human arterial disease. Indeed, his operation for aneurysm was a revollutionary concept. One of his patients survived for 50 years after such an operation in I 787-indeed his arterial specimen is still in the Hunterian Museum. As if all this was
5
not enough John Hunter also wrote a geological treatise which alone would have made him famous. After John Hunter's death his museum was purchased by Parliament and entrusted to this Royal College. Following burial in the crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields in 1793 he was reinterred in Westminster Abbey in February 1859.
Hunter and the Royal College of Surgeons of England The Royal College of Surgeons is the custodian of more than a national museum, the Hunterian Mluseum, it is the custodian of a great humanitarian and educational concept-the Hunter ethic and Hunter tradition. It was John Hunter who realised that those who wanted to help the ill by using their hands required more than a simple apprenticeship in hospital. They needed courses of instructioln and a scheme of training to give a background of learning to the day-to-day work. Hunter also knew that true learning is only possible against a background of research. Practising what he preached he, in the 178os, started up hiis own medical school in Leicester Square, a school which contained lecture theatres, practical classrooms, research rooms, and residential facilities for pupils. It was a school which was to become the blueprint for the medical schools of England and the United States through the ideas propagated by his nearly iOOO pupils to whom he had handed the torch of professional training. Of his American pupils, Philip Syng Physic, William Shippen, and John Morgan were the first to promote medical education in America. Today, some twvo hundred years later, the Royal College of Surgeons continues this work -but now with postgraduates who wish to become surgeons and surgical specialists. The work of the College includes the inspection of hospitals and specialist training posts, the conduct of higher specialist examinations both at home and overseas, the organisation and maintenance of important research departmenits and manifold other activities which make for safety and standards in surgery in
their broadest sense. The examination side of this work is self-financing, but the other activities are ensured only by the backing of the Fellows and of many generous donors, both individuals and business houses. The maintenance and development of this work, especially in times of inflation, is dependent on the goodwill and support of the general public.
Hunter would, we think, approve of the schemes for training which this College organises nationwide, including courses in advanced anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology and biochemistry, which can be applied to everyday surgical practice for the benefit and safety of the patient. So, too, would he praise the background of research that takes place in the scientific departments unique to the College. Therefore the Royal College oif Surgeons is a worthy custodian of the Hunterian tradition the making of high-grade surgeons and doctors, and also, through its Faculties, of high-grade dental surgeons and anaesthetists. When it comes to the making of a surgeon it is not just a matter of practising operations. So much has to go into learning what to do and when to do it in the alleviation of suffering, the cure of disease, and the repair of the injured. The art of surgery needs to be constantly illuminated by learning, through science, and this requires a strong and lasting backing of teacher surgeons and medical scientific research. This is indeed the College precept-the cultivation of the science as well as the art of surgery-and its motto is so
Hunterian Festival, I978
ruary. On i4th February a Fornmal Reception is being held at the College and on I5th February the Rt Hon. the Lord Wolfenden CBE will give the Hunterian Anniversary Oration entitled 'Hunter, Hippocrates, and humanity' in the Great Hall of Lincoln's Inn. Thursday i6th February is the day set aside for a symposium on 'Inflammation' arranged by the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, a subject close to Hunter and today featuring prostaglandins, SRS-A, immunopharmacology, delayed hypersensitivity, and macrophages. Also in the afternoon of this day there will be an exhibition of Hunteriana in Hunter's hospital, St George's at Hyde Park Corner. On Friday 17th February the Surgical Research Society is holding a symposium at the College on 'The scientific basis of the management of injury, wounds, and ulcers in the twentieth century', and the day will end with the Faculty of Dental Surgery Webb-Johnson Lecture by Mr B W Fickling CBE entitled 'The marches of dentistry'.
enough to be involved in the everyday life of the College and its work are presented with many opportunities to know Hunter and what his life and work stand for todlay. But there are many thousands whose location, practice, and other circumstances do not readily foster an understanding of or enthusiasm for Hunter and especially the adopted title of 'Patron saint of the College'. Naturally reference to the biographies on Hunter may serve to put things right for those to whom library facilities are readily available, but few have the time in a life of heavy clinical practice to search for the material required and to sit back and digest it. Therefore while the anniversary is in mind the Annals is including herewith the short biographical note and the interpretation of the work of Hunter and its relation to the work of the College today which are featured in the special Appeal brochure prepared for the occasion. The brochure is an attractive presentation and it is hoped that through it Fellows, Members, and friends of the College may be able to stimulate in the general public an ever-widening interest in the work, welfare, Those Fellows, Members, and friends of the financial independence, and future of the College who are near enough and fortunate College.
John Hunter 1728-1793 John Hunter was born during the night of I3th-i4th February I728 at East Kilbride, Scotland. He had little schooling, but he had an insatiable appetite for natural history and research and spent his whole life eagerly searching for knowledge. From I748 John spent ii years working at his brother William's anatomy school in London. During this period he studied surgery with such notable London surgeons as William Cheselden and Percivall Pott and also did vital research. A period of ill-health led to three years Army service in Belle Isle and Portugal during the Seven Years War. He began collecting animal and plant specimens which were the foundation of his unique museum, eventually to number 13 682 specimens. That
museum, despite damage in World War II, is still the jewvel of this Royal College. John Hunter's greatest development followed his Army life. He was elected a Fellolw of the Royal Society in 1767 and appointed surgeon to St George's Hospital in the following year. Thenceforward he regularly had resident students as house pupils for five-year periods. Despite his busy practice and heavy teaching commitment John spent many hours daily in research on his museum specimens. He wrote highly original papers, notably on the human teeth (which revolutionised dentistry), the blood, inflammation and gunshot wounds, the descent of the testis, the physiology of digestion, the repair of tendons, venereal disease, and many other subjects.
Hunterian Festival, I978 John's work on the development of collateral circulation in the deer's antler following blockage of the main artery he later applied in the treatment of human arterial disease. Indeed, his operation for aneurysm was a revollutionary concept. One of his patients survived for 50 years after such an operation in I 787-indeed his arterial specimen is still in the Hunterian Museum. As if all this was
5
not enough John Hunter also wrote a geological treatise which alone would have made him famous. After John Hunter's death his museum was purchased by Parliament and entrusted to this Royal College. Following burial in the crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields in 1793 he was reinterred in Westminster Abbey in February 1859.
Hunter and the Royal College of Surgeons of England The Royal College of Surgeons is the custodian of more than a national museum, the Hunterian Mluseum, it is the custodian of a great humanitarian and educational concept-the Hunter ethic and Hunter tradition. It was John Hunter who realised that those who wanted to help the ill by using their hands required more than a simple apprenticeship in hospital. They needed courses of instructioln and a scheme of training to give a background of learning to the day-to-day work. Hunter also knew that true learning is only possible against a background of research. Practising what he preached he, in the 178os, started up hiis own medical school in Leicester Square, a school which contained lecture theatres, practical classrooms, research rooms, and residential facilities for pupils. It was a school which was to become the blueprint for the medical schools of England and the United States through the ideas propagated by his nearly iOOO pupils to whom he had handed the torch of professional training. Of his American pupils, Philip Syng Physic, William Shippen, and John Morgan were the first to promote medical education in America. Today, some twvo hundred years later, the Royal College of Surgeons continues this work -but now with postgraduates who wish to become surgeons and surgical specialists. The work of the College includes the inspection of hospitals and specialist training posts, the conduct of higher specialist examinations both at home and overseas, the organisation and maintenance of important research departmenits and manifold other activities which make for safety and standards in surgery in
their broadest sense. The examination side of this work is self-financing, but the other activities are ensured only by the backing of the Fellows and of many generous donors, both individuals and business houses. The maintenance and development of this work, especially in times of inflation, is dependent on the goodwill and support of the general public.
Hunter would, we think, approve of the schemes for training which this College organises nationwide, including courses in advanced anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology and biochemistry, which can be applied to everyday surgical practice for the benefit and safety of the patient. So, too, would he praise the background of research that takes place in the scientific departments unique to the College. Therefore the Royal College oif Surgeons is a worthy custodian of the Hunterian tradition the making of high-grade surgeons and doctors, and also, through its Faculties, of high-grade dental surgeons and anaesthetists. When it comes to the making of a surgeon it is not just a matter of practising operations. So much has to go into learning what to do and when to do it in the alleviation of suffering, the cure of disease, and the repair of the injured. The art of surgery needs to be constantly illuminated by learning, through science, and this requires a strong and lasting backing of teacher surgeons and medical scientific research. This is indeed the College precept-the cultivation of the science as well as the art of surgery-and its motto is so
