and, indeed, the first who recognized, the disease of inflammation of the veins, which is of frequent occurrence, and, under the name of phlebitis, has latterly been much studied, but which, before his time, had been ascribed to the most erroneous causes.294 On general inflammation, he threw so much light, that the doctrines which he advocated, and which were then ridiculed as whimsical novelties, are now taught in the schools, and have become part of the common traditions of the medical profession.295 He, moreover, introduced what 66 London, 1853, vol. i. p. 170. At pp. 197, 198: After what I have said respecting the process of immediate union, it may appear that Mr. Hunter was more nearly right than his successors.' 294 Inflammation of the veins, originally studied by Hunter, has of late years attracted the attention of many distinguished Continental and British pathologists." Erichsen's Surgery, London, 1857, p. 475. "No subject more amply illustrates the essential services which the science and art of medicine have derived from pathological anatomy than that of phlebitis. By this study many a dark point in the phenomena of disease has been either thoroughly elucidated, or, at all events, rendered more comprehensible. We need only refer to the so-termed malignant intermittents, consequent upon wounds and surgical operations, to certain typhoid conditions, puerperal diseases, and the like. John Hunter, the elder Meckel, and Peter Frank, were the first to commence the investigation." Hasse's Anatomical Description of the Diseases of the Organs of Circulation and Respiration, London, 1846, p. 10. "Hunter was the first to open the way, and since that period the scalpel has shown that many previously unintelligible malignant conditions are attributable to phlebitis.' Jones and Sieveking's Pathological Anatomy, London, 1854, p. 362. On the application of this discovery to the theory of inflammation of the spleen, see Rokitansky's Pathological Anatomy, vol. ii. p. 173, Loudon, 1849; compare vol. iv. p. 335. 295 Sir Benjamin Brodie says: "It is true that the essential parts of John Hunter's doctrines as to inflammation and its consequences are now so incorporated with what is taught in the schools, that to be acquainted with them you need not seek them in his works; but I recommend you, nevertheless, to make these your especial study, for the sake of the other valuable information which they contain, and the important views in physiology and pathology which, in almost every page, are offered to your contemplation."" Brodie's Lectures on Pathology and Surgery, London, 1846, p. 25. "John Hunter, whose treatise on Inflammation is a mine in which all succeeding writers have dug." Watson's Principles and Practice of Physic, London, 1857, vol. i. p. 146. "The appeal to philosophical principles in Hunter's works was, indeed, the cause of their being a closed volume to his less enlightened contemporaries; but, though the principles implied or expressed, subjected them to the scorn and neglect of those less imbued with the spirit of philosophy, the results of those principles, verified as they were by facts, have gradually and insensibly forced themselves on the conviction of the profession; and though adopted silently, and without acknowledgment, as if the authors themselves had forgotten or were ignor is probably the most capital improvement in surgery ever effected by a single man; namely, the practice in aneurism of tying the artery at a distance from the seat of disease. This one suggestion has saved thousands of lives; and both the suggestion, and the first successful execution of it, are entirely owing to John Hunter, who, if he had done nothing else, would, on this account alone, have a right to be classed among the principal benefactors of mankind.296 ant from whence they were derived, they now form the very groundwork of all books, treatises, and lectures on professional subjects." Green's Vital Dynamics, London, 1840, p. 81. Finally, I will quote the very recent testimony of Mr. Simon, who, in his masterly, and singularly beautiful, essay on Inflammation, has not only brought together nearly every thing which is known on that interesting subject, but has shown himself to be possessed of powers of generalization rare in the medical profession, or, indeed, in any other profession. "Without undue partiality, an Englishman may be glad to say that the special study of Inflammation dates from the labours of John Hunter. An indefatigable observer of nature, untrammelled by educational forms, and thoroughly a sceptic in his method of study, this large-minded surgeon of ours went to work at inflammation with a full estimate of the physiological vastness of his subject. He saw that, in order to understand inflammation, he must regard it, not as one solitary fact of disease, but in connexion with kindred phenomena-some of them truly morbid in their nature, but many of them within the limits of health. He saw that, for any one who would explain inflammation, all inequalities of blood-supply, all periodicities of growth, all actions of sympathy, were part of the problem to be solved." "He cannot be understood without more reflection than average readers will give; and only they who are content to struggle through a veil of obscure language, up to the very reality of his intent, can learn with how great a master they are communing. "Doubtless, he was a great discoverer. But it is for the spirit of his labours, even more than for the establishment of new doctrine, that English surgery is for ever indebted to him. Of facts in pathology, he may, perhaps, be no permanent teacher; but to the student of medicine he must always be a noble pattern. Emphatically, it may be said of him, that he was the physiological surgeon. Others, before him (Galen, for instance, eminently), had been at once physiologists and practitioners; but science, in their case, had come little into contact with practice. Never had physiology been so incorporated with surgery, never been so applied to the investigation of disease and the suggestion of treatment, as it was by this masterworkman of ours. And to him, so far as such obligations can be personal, we assuredly owe it that, for the last half-century, the foundations of English surgery have, at least professedly, been changing from a basis of empiricism to a basis of science." Simon on Inflammation, in A System of Surgery, edited by T. Holmes, London, 1860, vol. i. pp. 134-136. 296 Mr. Bowman, in his Principles of Surgery (Encyclopædia of the Medical Sciences, London, 4to, 1847) says (p. 831): Before the time of Hunter, the operation was performed by cutting into the sac of the aneurism, and tying the vessel above and below. So formidable was this proceeding in its But, so far as his own immediate reputation was concerned, all was in vain. He was in the midst of a people who had no sympathy with that mode of thought which was most natural to him. They cared nothing for ideas, except with a view to direct and tangible results; he valued ideas for themselves, and for the sake of their truth, independently of all other considerations. His English contemporaries, prudent, sagacious, but short-sighted, seeing few things at a time, but seeing those things with admirable clearness, were unable to appreciate his comprehensive speculations. Hence, in their opinion, he was little else than an innovator and an enthusiast.297 Hence, too, even the practical improvements which he introduced were coldly received, because they proceeded from so suspicious a source. The great Scotchman, thrown among a nation whose habits of mind. were uncongenial to his own, stood, says one of the most celebrated of his disciples, in a position of solitary and consequences, that amputation of the limb was frequently preferred, as a less dangerous and fatal measure. The genius of Hunter led him to tie the femoral artery, in a case of popliteal aneurism, leaving the tumour untouched. The safety and efficacy of this mode of operating have now been fully established, and the principle has been extended to all operations for the cure of this formidable disease." See also p. 873: Paget's Surgical Pathology, vol. i. pp. 36, 37; and Erichsen's Surgery, pp. 141, 142, 508, 509. 297 The majority of Hunter's contemporaries considered his pursuits to have little connexion with practice, charged him with attending to physiology more than surgery, and looked on him as little better than an innovator and an enthusiast. Ottley's Life of Hunter, p. 126. In a work, 'which was written by a surgeon only the year after Hunter died, the reader is told, in regard to his remarkable inquiries respecting animal heat, that “his experiments, if they be true, carry with them no manner of information :if they be true, no effect for the benefit of man can possibly be derived from them." Foot's Life of Hunter, London, 1794, p. 116. At p. 225, the same practitioner reproaches the great philosopher with propounding "purely a piece of theory, without any practical purpose whatever." Foot, indeed, wrote under the influence of personal feelings, but he rightly judged that these were the sort of charges which would be most likely to prejudice the English public against Hunter. It never occurred to Foot, any more than it would occur to his readers, that the quest of truth, as truth, is a magnificent object, even if its practical benefit is imperceptible. One other testimony is worth quoting. Sir Astley Cooper writes of Cline: "His high opinion of Mr. Hunter shows his judgment; for almost all others of Mr. Hunter's contemporaries, although they praise him now, abused him while he lived." The Life of Sir Astley Cooper, by Bransby Blake Cooper, London, 1843, vol. ii. p. 337. comfortless superiority.298 Indeed, so little was he regarded by that very profession of which he was the chiefest ornament, that, during the many years in which he delivered lectures in London on anatomy and on surhis audience never amounted to twenty persons. gery, 299 I have now completed my examination of the Scotch intellect as it unfolded itself in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The difference between those two periods must strike every reader. In the seventeenth century, the ablest Scotchmen wasted their energies on theological subjects, respecting which we have no trustworthy information, and no means of obtaining any. On these topics, different persons and different nations, equally honest, equally enlightened, and equally competent, have entertained, and still entertain, the most different opinions, which they advocate with the greatest confidence, and support by arguments, perfectly satisfactory to themselves, but contemptuously rejected by their opponents. Each side deeming itself in possession of the truth, the impartial inquirer, that is, he who really loves truth, and knows how difficult it is to obtain it, seeks for some means by which he may fairly adjudicate between these conflicting pretensions, and determine which is right and which is wrong. The further he searches, the more he becomes convinced that no such means are to be found, and that these questions, if they do not transcend the limits of the human understanding, do, certainly, transcend its present resources, and have no chance of being answered, while other and much simpler problems are still unsolved. It would be strange, 208 "Those who far precede others, must necessarily remain alone; and their actions often appear unaccountable, nay, even extravagant, to their distant followers, who know not the causes that give rise to them, nor the effects which they are desigued to produce. In such a situation stood Mr. Hunter, with relation to his contemporaries. It was a comfortless precedence, for it deprived him of sympathy and social co-operation." Abernethy's Hunterian Oration, p. 49. 66 299 These he continued for several years; but so far were his talents, and his enlightened views, from exciting the attention they merited, that his hearers never amounted to twenty." Ottley's Life of Hunter, p. 28. VOL. II. P P indeed, if we, ignorant of so many lower and subordinate matters, should be able to reach and penetrate these remote and complicated mysteries. It would be strange if we, who, notwithstanding the advances we have made, are still in the infancy of our career, and who, like infants, can only walk with unsteady gait, and are scarce able to move without stumbling, even on plain and level ground, should, naithless, succeed in scaling those dizzy heights, which, overhanging our path, lure us on where we are sure to fall. Unfortunately, however, men are, in every age, so little conscious of their deficiencies, that they not only attempt this impossible task, but believe they have achieved it. Of those who are a prey to this delusion, there are always a certain number, who, seated on their imaginary eminence, are so inflated by 'the fancied superiority, as to undertake to instruct, to warn, and to rebuke the rest of mankind. Giving themselves out as spiritual advisers, and professing to teach what they have not yet learned, they exhibit in their own persons that most consistent of all combinations, a combination of great ignorance with great arrogance. From this, other evils inevitably follow. The ignorance produces superstition; the arrogance produces tyranny. Hence it is, that, in a country like Scotland, where the pressure of long-continued and adverse circumstances has consolidated the power of these pretenders to wisdom, such sad results become conspicuous in every direction. Not only the national character, but also the national literature, feel their influence, and are coloured by them. It was, therefore, natural that, in Scotland, in the seventeenth century, when the authority of the clergy was most uncontrolled, the consequences of that authority should be most apparent. It was natural that a literature should be created such as that of which I have given some account; a literature which encouraged superstition, intolerance, and bigotry; a literature full of dark misgivings, and of still darker threats; a literature which taught men that it was wrong to enjoy the present, and that it was right to tremble at the future; a |