Hunterian oration : the Hunterian oration, (February 14th, 1851,) that would have been delivered by a Member of the College of Surgeons, of London, if permission had been granted to him by the President and Council.

  • Crisp, Edwards, 1806-1882.
Date:
[1851]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hunterian oration : the Hunterian oration, (February 14th, 1851,) that would have been delivered by a Member of the College of Surgeons, of London, if permission had been granted to him by the President and Council. 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.

    3/8 (page 3)
    What advantage did Hunter derive from his working in wood and iron ? Did not his carving, planing, and sawing, improve his me- chanical skill, so as to enable him to collect and prepare with his own hands, the contents of the museum, which has been left by the government to your keeping for the public good ? If you wish for a memento of his fame, look at the Hunterian collection. No fulsome eulogies are needed to sound his praise. No sculptured urn, or monumental brass, should ornament his tomb. The simple name of Hunter is more touching than the poet’s elegy. In the Cathedral of Aix-la- Chapelle, where the mortal remains of Charlemagne once reposed, are inscribed on a slab of marble the words “ Carolo Magno.” This inscription is more affecting than the voices of a thousand orators. I now, Sir, come to a part of my subject that will excite both sur- prise and indignation in the minds of the former orators of this college who are present These gentlemen have spoken of Hunter’s doctrines as if they were immutable ; and they have assumed that nearly all his deductions were correct. But, Sir, if Hunter were alive, he would be the first to reprobate these assertions—these hasty and superficial con- clusions based on ignorance, indolence, and bigotry. But let us, Sir, as members of a profession who are seeking to unravel nature’s mys- teries—to investigate the elements of disease, and the causes of decay and death—seriously and truthfully ask ourselves whether this blind adherence to authority, this parrot-like preaching, has not been the greatest stumbling-block in our path. Original discoveries in science and art are rare : men are greatly indebted to their predecessors; they may complete the chain by joining the first-made links; but the whole is not manufactured by the same artizan. Jenner first thought of vac- cination from the assertion of the dairymaid, who told him that “ she had had the hives, and therefore could not have the small-pox.” I am not aware that Hunter knew of the operation that Anel had practised ; but Leslie, in 1774, in a case of traumatic aneurism in the lower part of the femoral artery, after securing the vessel above and below the wound (on the recurrence of haemorrhage), says, “ I now resolved to take a fresh firm spot higher up, and from the size of the aperture in the first operation, I had little more to cut. However, to make sure of it, I took up the vessel three inches at least above the former ligature. The patient recovered.” But, to use the words of Astley Cooper, “Hunter has the merit of having substituted a simple and beautiful operation for one of consider- able difficulty and danger.” To exemplify, however, the absurdity of hasty conclusions, and to show the progress of discovery, it is now questionable whether Hunter’s operation for popliteal and brachial aneurisms is really required in one case in ten. I think an inquest should be held on all patients who die after ligature of the brachial ar- tery for (long standing) traumatic aneurism. The present of instru- ments Sir B. Brodie has lately received from the Dublin College may perhaps induce our hospital surgeons to give pressure a fair trial. I feel, sir, that these remarks are not irrelevant to the present subject. I proceed to the gist of the matter, as far as regards our hero ; and, I ask, are his published doctrines correct ? Will many of them bear the light of modern investigation ? I fearlessly and unhesitatingly assert