The Reluctant Surgeon: A Biography of John Hunter

John Hunter was a pioneering Scottish surgeon whose 18th-century experiments and practices were ahead of his time in many ways. Hunterian literature crowds the shelves of medical libraries the world over. The Britannica devotes more space to Hunter than to Linneaus, Pare, Harvey, Jenner, Lister, Simpson, Pasteur, Freud, or Fleming. Yet outside the scientific community the name today strikes only a dim spark of recognition, if any at all. Although his practical contributions were legion, none had the kind of dramatic impact, the easily grasped significance, that excites the lay imagination. What Hunter accomplished transcended specific discovery and technical invention. He introduced a new spirit of inquiry, a philosophy, which not only transformed the medical theory and practice of his epoch, but profoundly influenced scientific thinking everywhere down to our own times.