Elements of Life: Editing and Arranging the Work of John Hunter

This paper explores the epistemic management of John Hunter's work, following the Crown's 1799 purchase of his specimen-collection, which made the life sciences a national trust. Hunter's work, spanning anatomy, pathology, and even geology, raised worrisome questions about the nature of life at the borders of disciplines that opened up the organization of the body and our knowledge of bodies. I trace these questions through two 'editorial' projects: Richard Owen's cataloguing and editing of Hunter, which recasts Hunter as a comparative anatomist rather than a medical-surgical thinker, and James Palmer's earlier edition, which emphasizes the writings over the specimens.