The Knife Man: The Extraordinary Life and Times of John Hunter, Father of Modern SurgeryBroadway Books, 2005 - 341 pages When Robert Louis Stevenson wrote his gothic horror story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, he reputedly based the house of the genial doctor turned fiend on the home of the 18thC surgeon and anatomist John Hunter. The choice was understandable, for Hunter combined an altruistic determination to advance scientific knowledge with dark dealings that brought him into daily contact with the sinister Georgian underworld. In 18thC London, Hunter was a man both acclaimed and feared. Driven by an insatiable curiosity, Hunter dissected thousands of human bodies, using the knowledge he gained to improve medical care for countless patients. Treating not only the poor but also some of the most illustrious characters of the time, such as Joshua Reynolds and the young Lord Byron, he was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to King George III and served in the Seven Years War where, following long, bloody battles, he patched up the unfortunate casualties' musket wounds and bayonet injuries. Considered by many to be the father of modern surgery, Hunter was also an eminent naturalist; he dissected the first creatures brought back from Captain Cook's voyages to Australia and kept exotic animals in his country menagerie in Earls Court; his eventual thesis outlining his ideas on evolution included a passage headed, 'On the origin of species'. Written some 60 years before Darwin's famous paper, this potentially groundbreaking work was suppressed on religious grounds by the Royal Society. Ultimately, he created the largest anatomical collection of its kind u which has been called 'a museum of evolution' u still to be seen in central London. Although a leading figure of the Enlightenment, and friend to many influential men of his age, Hunter's tireless quest for human and animal bodies drove him to unparalleled extremes that immersed in the murky world of body-snatching. He paid large sums to his criminal contacts for the stolen corpses of men, women and children which were delivered in hampers to his back door. |
From inside the book
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Page 113
... died in unexplained circumstances . This was a momentous develop- ment . Although public dissections of criminals hung at Tyburn still aroused widespread repulsion , there began a gradual movement toward general ac- ceptance of ...
... died in unexplained circumstances . This was a momentous develop- ment . Although public dissections of criminals hung at Tyburn still aroused widespread repulsion , there began a gradual movement toward general ac- ceptance of ...
Page 115
... died suddenly from an unknown cause . " This was the fourth Child that died in that way , and all about that Age , " Hunter wrote in the casebooks ; " their parents were desirous of knowing if there could be any possible cause for it ...
... died suddenly from an unknown cause . " This was the fourth Child that died in that way , and all about that Age , " Hunter wrote in the casebooks ; " their parents were desirous of knowing if there could be any possible cause for it ...
Page 121
... died there in 1758. He had also acquired the skeleton of an orca , or killer whale , which had beached itself at the mouth of the Thames in 1759. Hunter had the twenty - four - foot - long carcass towed to Westminster by barge and then ...
... died there in 1758. He had also acquired the skeleton of an orca , or killer whale , which had beached itself at the mouth of the Thames in 1759. Hunter had the twenty - four - foot - long carcass towed to Westminster by barge and then ...
Contents
The Coach Drivers Knee | 1 |
The Dead Mans Arm | 13 |
The Stout Mans Muscles | 31 |
Copyright | |
18 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching, and the Birth of Modern Surgery Wendy Moore Limited preview - 2006 |
The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching, and the Birth of Modern Surgery Wendy Moore Limited preview - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
anatomist anatomy aneurysm animals Anne army artery Banks Belle-Ile blood bones British Byrne Byrne's century Cheselden collection College of Surgeons Company of Surgeons corpses Covent Garden creatures dead death described died discovery dissecting room Earls Court East Kilbride Edinburgh Edward Jenner eighteenth-century Everard Home experiments fellow friends geon George George's Georgian Glasgow gonorrhea History of Medicine hospital human body Hunter brothers Hunterian Museum infection James Jenner Jermyn Street Jessé Foot John Abernethy John Hunter John's knife later lectures Leicester Square living London lymphatic Monro never notes Observations operation organs Ottley patients Percivall Pott physician postmortems Pott practice preparations published pupils recorded Roy Porter Royal College Royal Society scientific Scottish skull Solander species specimens summer Surgeons of England surgery surgical syphilis teeth theater tion tooth transplanting treatise tures venereal disease vessels William Hunter wound young