John Hunter, part 2

John Hunter
(note skeleton in background)
(Wellcome Library)

Before his establishment as a sought-after teacher and healer, John Hunter studied under his older brother William and then the famous surgeon William Cheselden.  John then became a military surgeon, which later led to his "Treatise on the Blood, Inflammation, and Gun-shot Wounds."  He would also write papers on human teeth, venereal disease, and "Certain Parts of the Animal Oeconomy" (Porter, Bodies, 175-76).  Once he became well-known, the elite mentioned him in their letters, reporting his treatments of both medications and surgery, and even that he recommended "a little excess now and then is good for the constitution, it puts the Stomach on a salutary exertion" (Lane, 211, 220, 239).

Left leg amputation.  The knob on top of the knee keeps the tourniquet tight,
while the surgeon reaches around under the leg to make a circular cut.
Note the standing room only gallery,
including Omaih, a Polynesian gentleman visiting from Tahiti in 1774-1776.
  (Source: Old Operating Theatre and Herb Garret)

Surgery was only done as a last resort when it was a matter of either life or death, or relief of excruciating pain. Neither anaesthesia or antisepsis was yet known. Patients were awake (alcohol intake caused more bleeding), and held down by students or assistants (Mathias, Julie. "The Old Operating Theatre," Lecture at Old Operating Theatre and Herb Garret, London, 15 October 2012). So the best surgeon was a quick and accurate one, who knew what he was doing because he had practiced.
For some sense of what an operating theatre in the 18th and early 19th century was like, watch http://medicallondon.org/walk_1.html, "Mark Pilkington reveals the history of the Old Operating Theatre."  For some sort of sense as to what an amputation was like, view http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAk4XOrbH9g or you can connect to it by clicking "Museum Video: Medicine at the Movies" at www.thegarret.org.uk. 



Wonderful drawing of dissection of torpedo fish
by John Hunter
(Wellcome Library)

James Paget, a Victorian surgeon, would later write about John Hunter, "Before his time [surgeons] held inferior rank in the profession ... they were subject to the physicians, and very justly so, for the physicians were not only better learned in their own proper calling, but men of higher culture, educated gentlemen and the associates of gentlemen.  From Hunter's time a marked change may be seen.  Physicians worthily maintained their rank, as they do now, and surgeons rose to it ... Yes, more than any man that ever lived, Hunter helped to make us gentlemen[.]" (Porter, Bodies, 176.)