Art in Science: William and John Hunter—Gifts of the Enlightenment

Introduction

Few, if any, individuals better exemplify the spirit of the Enlightenment than William Hunter (1718-1783) (Fig. 1) and his younger brother, John Hunter (1728-1793) (Fig. 2). This was a time in Western civilization characterized by a quest for new knowledge, emerging from a millennium that discouraged, if not forbid, questioning. While certainly not responsible for reawakening interest in either art or science, the Hunters clearly helped to advance both disciplines during this era, also known as The Age of Reason.

Fig. 1.

William Hunter by Joshua Reynolds, c.1787, oil on canvas, University of Glasgow Library, Glasgow, Scotland, UK. © The Hunterian, University of Glasgow

Fig. 2.

John Hunter by Joshua Reynolds, 1786, oil on canvas. Courtesy of the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons.

After attending the University of Glasgow where he studied medicine, William moved to London to study under Dr. William Smellie, and soon thereafter with Dr. James Douglas, both extraordinary obstetricians and anatomists [3]. By 1746, William began teaching medicine and anatomy himself, his lifelong passion [6]. John joined his brother William in London in 1748 to assist with his dissections and lectures, and soon became sufficiently skilled to instruct and practice independently. John also had prestigious mentors and collaborators, including dentist James Spence and microbiologist Edward Jenner.

Working at times together as well as independently, their contributions to science are huge in scope, impact, and diversity, with their research ranging from butterflies and coins to uteri and musculoskeletal conditions. However, the insights and actions the Hunters provided in the realm of the arts, and the roles they established through their collections and museums, are no less impactful than their science. Indeed, the museums that house their collections, the Hunterian at the University of Glasgow in Scotland and the Hunterian in London, UK, may be even more significant and enduring conceptionally than the contents contributed, catalogued, and presented in those venues. By displaying for their contemporaries what was then known, by drawing attention to what needed to be better understood, and by providing a reservoir of objects from which new knowledge could be gleaned, the Hunters have made a lasting impact on both science and art. It came, however, at a cost.

Aggressive Methods of Collection

Both William and, especially, John reinterpreted or ignored social, ethical, and legal constraints to acquire human tissues and bodies. They certainly failed to pursue what is now considered informed consent in human experimentation. In their quest for collectables and materials for observation and experimentation, the Hunters used their wealth and political influence to amass their collections at times by questionable means and to further their fame.

One of William’s most noted contributions, his publication in 1774 of The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus Exhibited in Figures [8], exemplifies his aggressive collection methods. This work was based upon numerous dissections and careful observations he performed on corpses reflecting the spectrum of pregnancy. John was clearly active in both the acquisition and dissection of these bodies, and unsubstantiated rumors of improprieties in the manner of collecting these specimens abound [5, 10, 11]. Resurrectionists (grave robbers) were a thriving trade at the time. The death rate from complications of pregnancy was more than sufficient to account for the numbers of specimens in William’s collection, which undoubtedly came at a financial, ethical, if not legalistic cost. John’s aggressive collecting habits included the acquisition of the corpse of Charles Byrne, a 7’8’’ Irishman known as the “Irish Giant.” Byrne expressed his strong desire in life to be buried at sea, in order to avoid his remains being displayed posthumously. His coffin, however, was buried full of rocks, and his body was purchased and later exhibited by John [5, 10, 11]. His skeleton can still be seen at The Hunterian Museum in London.

In the course of his studies on circulation, William injected arteries and veins with colored solutions and eventually developed and popularized a technique to preserve (embalm) bodies for burial [11]. John has been described as using this approach to embalm and preserve the body of Mary Van Butchell upon her death in 1775 [4], although other accounts indicate that William was the embalmer of record [13]. Her will left control of her fortune to her husband, but only for as long as her body stayed above ground. Her embalmed body rested in a glass-covered case in her husband’s home for some considerable time, until removed at the insistence of his next wife. The embalmed body then came to “rest” at the Hunterian Museum in London, until both the museum and the body were badly damaged by bombing in 1941.

Eclectic Collections

Both Hunters were extraordinarily inquisitive, rigorous scientists, devoted educators, and passionate collectors of natural and manufactured objects. William’s collection included many examples of healing fractures of bone and spinal curvatures. He also commissioned an iron casting of the flayed, muscular corpse of a recently executed criminal, which he used during his anatomy lectures [2]. Inspired and informed by a specimen patella with marked degenerative changes, William wrote [6, 7] that “we shall find that an ulcerated cartilage is universally allowed to be a very troublesome disease; that it admits of a cure with more difficulty than carious bone; and that when destroyed, it is not recovered.” He credits other commentators from Hippocrates forward as making this same observation. As his mentor, James Douglas, he thought of bones “as living organs rather than simply as an armature for the rest of the body.” Also, like Douglas, William admired and valued medical illustrations and was responsible for creating a renewed interest in the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci in the United Kingdom during the 18^th century [2].

John’s engagement and interest in bone and hard tissues appears to eclipse his brother. His collection includes numerous diseased, injured bones and spinal deformities. He chronicled fracture repair with great accuracy, and he predicted the principle of bone remodeling [5, 12]. The skeletons of gigantism (that of Byrne, mentioned earlier) and of fibrodysplasia ossificans progressive (known as Mr. Jeffs) that he acquired, studied, and displayed are particularly fascinating and uncommon (Fig. 3); a better understanding the pathophysiology of these disorders did not come for another 200 years. There is an iconic, preserved rooster in John’s collection, in which it’s spur has been successfully grafted onto its skull (Fig. 4), representing one of the earliest surviving examples of autogenous hard tissue transplantation [11, 12].

Fig. 3.

The gallery in the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons in London is shown. The skeleton of Mr. Byrne (middle left) is an example of gigantism. The skeleton of Mr. Jeffs (middle right) is an example of fibrodysplasia ossificans progressive. Courtesy of the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons.

Fig. 4.

A successful transplantation of a rooster’s spur to its forehead is shown. This was an early example of a skeletal autograft performed by John Hunter. Courtesy of the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons.

Sound (and Unsound) Scientific Contributions

John’s contributions to orthopaedics included his research on bone growth and bone healing [5]. Using young chickens and pigs, he placed holes in long bones, then filled the defects with lead shot, at precise distances apart in the shaft of these bones. When sacrificed later, he noted that the markers had not significantly changed their relationship to one another, although the bones were longer [5]. He came to understand this longitudinal growth occurred through the ends of bones, rather than throughout their length (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5.

Tarsal bone of a young chicken in which John Hunter marked to points in the diaphysis with lead shot and recovered the specimen after the animal had “grown old,” demonstrating growth of the bone occurred at its ends rather than throughout its original length. Courtesy of the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons.

John is frequently credited by the academic surgical community with the transformation of surgery from a mechanical art to an experimental science and clinical discipline based upon knowledge [6]. His understanding of the role of inflammation led to changes in gunshot wound care and battlefield casualties, and his observations of the development of collateral circulation in antlers and its subsequent application to the treatment of aneurysms in humans are examples of his scientific insights and their impact on clinical surgical care [6, 10, 11].

But not all of John’s research models were appropriate for their intended purposes nor were his conclusions always sound. He thought, for example, that both syphilis and gonorrhea shared the same microbe. He infected a person (probably himself) with pus from a patient with gonorrhea and demonstrated the subsequent occurrence of syphilis, presuming proof of his theory. But he failed to realize that his instruments used in the transfer, the pus itself, or both were also infected with syphilis [10, 11].

Renowned Museums

Both William and John continued to amass enormous collections of objects throughout their lives, containing diverse subject matter. They were also held in enormous esteem for their medical skills, anatomy lectures, and their use of scientific observations to better understand the human condition in health and disease. These accomplishments were essentially unblemished at their time by some of the questionable strategies used to acquire their anatomical materials. William became physician to Queen Charlotte, Fellow of the Royal Society, and Professor of Anatomy to the Royal Academy. He sustained a fatal stroke while still lecturing in London at the age of 64. His large financial bequest and extensive collections formed the basis for the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery at the University of Glasgow, which opened in 1807 as Scotland’s first public museum [2, 6, 11].

John became Surgeon General of the British Army, surgeon to King George III, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the Hunterian Society of London was named in his honor. Known for his temper, he died at the age of 65 of an apparent heart attack while arguing with hospital administrators at St. George’s Hospital over the admission of medical students. Six years following his death, the British government purchased his 14,000-specimen collection and voluminous papers, including the skeleton of Charles Byrne, to form the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons in London [5, 10].

It was certainly William Hunter’s intent to keep his collection intact to “provide the occasion to contemplate how knowledge was—and still is—produced, and to examine the continuing role of museums in reflecting and shaping the modern world” [2] For him, the museum was “the center of his pedagogy, to facilitate the production of knowledge” [2].

A Quest For Knowledge—But At What Cost?

Through the Hunters’ collections, we’ve preserved the mindset of two passionate and insightful representatives of the Enlightenment Era, and we acknowledge the scientific rigor they taught and practiced in their quest for new knowledge. But there was a price for this leap forward. While not unique to the Hunters or to the Enlightenment, our protagonists and this period of time are excellent examples of how the quest for new knowledge can be used to justify ignoring some of the associated moral, ethical, and legal considerations. The material gifts of the Enlightenment, embedded in the Hunters’ collections and reflected in the manner in which they were pursued and acquired, are “tied to deeply problematic aspects of 18th century economic and social culture: Imperialism, colonialism, slavery, domination over nature, and patriarchal structures that directly or indirectly maintained control over the female body” [9].

We are also mindful of the cost of ignorance, which prevailed for the millennium prior to the Enlightenment and, of course, still plagues us today. What would we be willing to “pay” for a cure for cancer? What compromises, for example, would we find acceptable to better understand the natural course of syphilis as pursued by the United States Public Health Service in collaboration with Tuskegee University on 600 uninformed African-Americans from 1932 to 1972 [1]? As we celebrate the contributions of science and art, we should also consider their costs.