The Intractability of One Man: Hunterian Controversies

THE INTRACTABILITY OF ONE MAN: HUNTERIAN CONTROVERSIES LLOYD ALLAN WELLS, Ph.D., M.D* It has usually been thought that in offices of trust men should do their duty or resign them. ... A custom so prevalent shall not be broken by the intractability of one man. [Complaint against John Hunter by the senior surgeons of St. George's Hospital (1, p. 341)] It is remarkable that there is scarce a considerable character in anatomy that is not connected with some warm controversy. Anatomists have ever been engaged in contention, and indeed I believe that if a man has not such a degree of enthusiasm and love for his art as will make him impatient of unreasonable criticism he will hardly ever become considerable in anatomy or in any branch or natural knowledge. [William Hunter (2, p. 40)] I own I am but a pygmy in knowledge, but I am as a giant when compared with these men. [John Hunter (3, p. 288)] Most ofJohn Hunter's biographers have reacted to him on an emotional level, as did most of his contemporaries, and many biographers have become personally involved in the many controversies which surrounded this man during his lifetime. There has been a great deal of exculpation and denigration, without sufficient objective weighing of many of these controversies. I shall examine four of the controversies in which John Hunter was involved, two with scientific and two with medical colleagues. I hope that this examination may shed some light both on Hunter, his approach to science and surgery, and the state of biological science and medicine in the late eighteenth century. I believe that at least three of these controversies were sparked by Hunter's ability to transcend the scientific and medical framework of his time but that, paradoxically, the flames may have been further fanned by his adhesion to the social framework of his age, as well as his personal intransigence. Hunter became engaged in two major scientific controversies, one private and one public. The private controversy involved the decision of the Royal Society not to publish one of his communications. ?Address: Eyota, Minnesota 55934. 304 I Lloyd Allan Wells · Hunterian Controversies The paper was a recollection of the fossils which he had observed while an army surgeon in Portugal, and was written some 30 or more years after the observations had been made. The fossils were described in rather general terms; Hunter then commented on the formation of fossils and the relationship of this subject in the interpretation of the biblical flood, writing: Forty days' water overflowing the dry land could not have brought such quantities of sea productions on its surface; nor can we suppose thence, taking all possible circumstances into consideration, that it remained long on the whole surface of the earth; therefore there was no time for their being fossilized; they could only have been left, and exposed on the surface. But it would appear that the sea has more than once made its incursions on the same place; for the mixture of land- and sea-productions now found on the land is a proofof at least two changes having taken place. [3, p. 298] This assertion challenged both scientific and religious doctrine. Although many other eighteenth-century geologists felt that inland fossils such as those described by Hunter were a clear indication of previous flooding, they made no conclusions about the significance of several strata of fossils. Hunter's view was incompatible with biblical authority as conceived by many orthodox theologians. Hunter went on in the paper to assert that "many thousand centuries" had to be postulated for the formation of the many fossil layers which he had observed in Portugal. Again, this assertion contradicted contemporary science and theology. At the time, experts felt that there was no way of accurately dating the process of fossil formation, while many theologians still adhered to Bishop Usher's chronology, with the creation of the world fixed in 4004 B.C. It has been asserted in various Hunterian orations and elsewhere that Sir Joseph Banks summarily rejected this communication because of these two controversial statements and that Hunter's disillusionment with the Royal Society dates from this incident...