John Hunter, the surgeon and anatomist, part 1

I know the very few of you who are going to get excited about this picture are the medical history geeks (count me in).  But let me explain to the rest of you what the excitement about these drawings is all about.  I'll need to give you a little history first.

Two forms of aneurysm
(weakening in the wall of a blood vessel,
making it bulge)
Drawn by John Hunter
(Source: Wellcome Library) 

It was considered shameful for a body to be dissected after death.  This shame was reinforced by the Murder Act of 1752, which directed that the body of any executed murderer not be buried but be either publicly dissected or hung in chains.  There were no restrictions by age, sex, gender or occupation, and so people went to see dissections as a form of entertainment.  This was considered to be a deterrent to crime, and the Barber-Surgeons' Company received the bodies and kept strict control over them (Display, Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, viewed 18 October 2012).
(In 1745, the barbers and the surgeons were separated into distinct guilds by George II, who then established the Royal College of Surgeons.  The barbers were thus more restricted in what they were able to do, but today they retain the memory of their affiliation with surgeons via the red and white striped barber's pole, which symbolized both professions' ability to let blood in the 18th century.) (http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/people/barbersurgeons.aspx, accessed 18 November 2012).


(Source: Wellcome Library)

Surgeons needed to know what was in the body in order to be able to identify physical changes in the body due to illness.  (Remember, physicians felt anatomy was beneath them because they diagnosed based on the premise of humour theory.)  Surgeons at this time did not go to university but were apprenticed with a more experienced surgeon, and in order to learn their profession needed to attend anatomy lectures (Hunterian Museum).


Cheselden giving
anatomy/dissection lesson,
circa 1730-40

The above etching, entitled "The Reward of Cruelty", shows the dissection of a man executed by hanging.  The artist portrays the surgeons as disrespectful to the body, including letting a dog gnaw at the man's innards, and boiling the flesh off skeletons.  Before 1745, only the instructor dissected while students (and public) watched, but in 1745 the well-known surgeon William Cheselden began advertising for students to participate so they could buy hands-on experience.



William Hunter's drawing
of pregnant uterus
(Source: Wellcome Library)

However, a pair of brothers made anatomy and dissection more acceptable and gave medical science incredible information.  William (1718-83) and John Hunter (1728-1793) excelled at dissection and anatomy.  William headed a private anatomy school in Piccadilly which taught students physiology, midwifery, pathology, and women's/children's diseases as well as surgery (Porter, Blood, 121).  In my opinion, William was the better artist in terms of educating students -- compare his drawing with that of John's above.

So the reason to get excited about this is because by dissecting bodies, and then educating by hands-on cutting and via drawings, knowledge about what was in the body (and therefore abnormalities) expanded.  In Italy, professor of anatomy Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1682-1771) proved that diseases of certain kinds showed up in certain organs, that certain anatomical abnormalities correlated with specific symptoms, and that organ changes were responsible for illness.  In 1799, the anatomist Marie Francois Xavier Bichat (1771-1802) taught, "You may take notes for twenty years from morning to night at the bedside of the sick, and all will be to you only a confusion of symptoms ... a train of incoherent phenomena."  But once bodies are opened "this obscurity will soon disappear." (Porter, Blood, 71-74.)