The Knife Man

JOHN HUNTER (age 57, amazing surgeon)
"Known for paying above the norm for any kind of anatomical curiosity"

#s = CHAPTERS
1. Popliteal aneurysm -> cut off femoral artery higher up & it made new connections!

2. Born 2/14/1728 a 10th child, 6 of his 9 siblings died young.
pg 22 "barbers were the first surgeons"
pg 37 the government had to create the Anatomy Act of 1832 to put an end to body snatching (digging up graves)

3. to 8. Lymphatic system, dentistry, chiropractice, freezing experiments, the army, cranial nerves, embryology, separate vascularization of embryo & mom... the list goes on! He never seemed to take a break!

9. John Hunter gives himself gonorrhea (& unkown to him syphilis) by poking his penis with an infected knife [to observe its course]. This leads to him concluding that gonorrhea and syphyilis are the same, setting back progress.
Jesse Foot attacks J.H. but his pupil retorts. pg 140.
- artificial insemination of silkworms - comparative anatomy

10. First job as a surgeon. His pupil Edward Jenner developed the smallpox vaccine which eradicated the disease completely. John Hunter and Anne Home get married in 1771.

11. When a student accused Hunter of changing his views every year:
"Very likely I did. I hope I grow wiser every year."
He was very nervous about public speaking! He loved taking questions and encouraged students to question everything.
Hunter finds electrical organs in torpedo fish that inspired Allessandro Voltan to make the first battery => electrical eel experiments / dissection

12. Often people would "revive" after hanging. Hunter tries and fails to bring back chaplain Dodd.
-Whale (it's vena cava could fit a 1 y/o child!), orca, dolphin

13. Childhood onset acromegaly : GIGANTISM
William; Hunter's brother, dies.
- Hunter devises plan to get Byrnes the giant's corpse.

14. pg 227 ** describes front cover photo on book!

15. Hunter opens museum to the public. He placed a monkey skull besides human ones, proposing they were related. This angered religious folks.

16. John Hunter has a heart attack during a hospital meeting. His pupils performed an autopsy on him. Cause of death was angina. William Cliff, his most honorable student, delcared:
"From the beginning, I fancied, without being able to account for it, that nobody about John Hunter seemed capable of appreciating him. He seemed to me to have lived before his time and to have died before he was sufficiently understood."



fin. ~ 6pm ~ Whispering Creek Villas