The Hunterian Oration : delivered February 14, 1883 at the Royal College of Surgeons of England / by T. Spencer Wells.

  • Wells, Spencer, 1818-1897.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Hunterian Oration : delivered February 14, 1883 at the Royal College of Surgeons of England / by T. Spencer Wells. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    in possessing two busts of our great master as well as the full-length sitting figure in the museum by Weekes. And we have a second portrait, by Sir Nathaniel Holland, : which was said by Mr. Clift, and by Sir John Dorat, Hunter’s last surviving pupil, to be better as a mere likeness than the idealised portrait by Reynolds. Per- haps Eeynolds’s portrait is more suggestive of the man ; who thought, and Flaxman’s bust of the man who observed, experimented, acted. Though Hunter loved to think, he followed Bacon in ! insisting on observation and experiment as the only ; foundations of true science. ‘ If you check experiment you stop discovery ’ is one of his aphorisms. And he once wrote to a friend, 41 think your solution is just. But why think ? Why not try the experiment P Repeat all the' experiments as soon as you receive this, and they will give you the solution.’ Thus in Hunter we find the mind which investigates the laws of disease, and the hand which improves the art which cures disease; not only philosopher and pathologist, but surgeon—as rare a combination as that of a profound jurist and an eloquent advocate—an agricultural chemist and a farmer—an astronomer and a pilot. We have a combination of Faraday investigating the laws of elec- tricity and magnetism, and Swan or Edison applying the knowledge in the electric lighting of towns. It is unnecessary to repeat now, what Mr. Wonnald proved in this place twenty-five years ago, that Hunter was well aware of the possibility of curing aneurism by pressure on the artery as well as by tying it—in this, as in so many other instances, anticipating recent improve- ments in practice supposed to be new. Just as we find that modern views of phlebitis and pysemia had been advanced by Hunter; and Burdoi? Sanderson, in his lec- c