Hunter, JOHN, physiologist and surgeon, was born at Long Calderwood, near East Kilbride, in Lanarkshire, 13th February 1728, and was the youngest of ten children. One of his sisters, Dorothea, was married to Dr James Baillie, professor of Divinity in the university of Glasgow, and was the mother of Matthew and Joanna Baillie (q.v.). His brother William's fame led John to apply for and obtain the situation of assistant in the dissecting-room. He studied surgery under Cheselden in 1749-50 at Chelsea Hospital, and subsequently under Pott. After a year at Oxford he entered St George's Hospital as surgeon's pupil in 1754, afterwards becoming house-surgeon and partner with his brother in the anatomical school. After ten years' hard work of this kind his health gave way, and in 1759 he entered the army as staff-surgeon, and served at Belleisle and in the Peninsula. Peace being proclaimed in 1763, he returned to London and, starting the practice of surgery, devoted much time and money to comparative anatomy. In 1767 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in the following year was appointed surgeon to St George's Hospital, an appointment which enabled him to take pupils, of whom one of the earliest was Jenner. His practice at this time was increasing rapidly, but his income never reached £1000 a year until 1774. In 1776 he was appointed surgeon-extraordinary to the king. In 1785 he built his museum, with lecture-rooms, and in the same year he tried his famous operation for the cure of aneurysm—that of simply tying the artery at a distance from the tumour, and between it and the heart. In 1786 Hunter was appointed deputy-surgeon-general to the army; in 1787 he received the Copley medal from the Royal Society. He was now universally acknowledged by all the younger surgeons as the head of his profession; but most of his contemporaries looked upon him as little better than an innovator and an enthusiast. He died 16th October 1793, and was buried in the church of St Martin's-in-the-Fields, whence, thanks to Frank Buckland, his remains were translated in March 1859 to Westminster Abbey. Some idea of Hunter's diligence may be gathered from the fact that his museum contained at the time of his death 10,563 specimens and preparations illustrative of human and comparative anatomy, physiology, pathology, and natural history. He died in comparative poverty, and his collection was purchased by government, two years after his death, for £15,000, and was presented to the Royal College of Surgeons.
In addition to the numerous papers contributed to the Transactions of the Royal and other learned societies, he published the following independent works: The Natural History of the Human Teeth (1771-78); A Treatise on the Venereal Disease (1786); Observations on Certain Parts of the Animal Economy (1786); and A Treatise on the Blood, Inflammation, and Gunshot Wounds (1794). See Palmer's edition of his works (1835), Mather's Two Great Scotsmen (1894), and the Life by S. Paget (1897).