Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/99

Rh died under their care, besides which he purchased such rare animals as came in his way, and many were presented to him by his friends, which he very judiciously intrusted to the showmen to keep until they died, the better to secure their interest in assisting him in his labours.

Ill health is too often the penalty of unremitting application, and Mr Hunter's health now became so much impaired by excessive attention to his pursuits, that in the year 1760, when he had just completed his thirty-second year, he became affected by symptoms which appeared to threaten consumption, and for which a milder climate was deemed advisable.

In October, 1760, he was appointed by Mr Adair, surgeon on the staff, and the following spring he embarked with the army for Belleisle, leaving Mr Hewson to assist his brother during his absence. Both in Belleisle and Portugal he served as senior surgeon on the staff, until the year 1763, and during this period amassed the materials for his valuable work on gun-shot wounds. Nor is this all; taking advantage of the opportunities presented to him, he examined the bodies of many of the recently killed, with the view of tracing the healthy structures of certain parts, as well as the nature of particular secretions. After the peace in 1763, Mr Hunter returned to England, "which," says one of his biographers, "I have often heard him say he had left long enough to be satisfied, how preferable it is to all other countries."

Mr Hewson had now supplied the place of Mr Hunter in superintending dissections and assisting in the anatomical theatre during the space of two years, and it was scarcely to be expected that he would resume his connexion with his brother. During his absence, the interest he had previously acquired in the profession, naturally became diminished; for it is the fate of all who are either by necessity or choice induced to leave their native country, to find on their return, the friendship of some alienated, and that death, or worldly circumstances have compelled others to leave the circle of their former acquaintance. Here then we find Mr Hunter at the age of thirty-six, with very limited means, and with few friends, settling in London to commence the great professional struggle which all are destined to encounter who enter on this particular path of life, which is generally found to be crowded with competitors whom good fortune has already signalized with success. Scarcely can any situation of greater anxiety be conceived, than that of an able and active-minded man sitting down to practise medicine in a city in which he is comparatively a stranger, and which is already supplied with numerous rival practitioners, on whom the public has already pronounced a favourable verdict Such at this time was the position of Mr Hunter, as one of his biographers simply but emphatically expresses it, "the practice of surgery now and for a long time afterwards afforded no opening for him; Hawkins, Bimfield, Sharpe, Potter, embraced almost the whole of family practice, whilst Adair and Tomkins carried from him the chief of the practice derived from the army." Disheartening, and indeed gloomy as these prospects now were, he returned with unabated ardour to his scientific pursuits, and laid the foundation of that eminence which he afterwards attained. If the difficulties of this world be met with philosophy, and with a firm resolution to overcome them,, they may generally be surmounted, and they then leave the moral victor both the wiser and the happier for the conflict. So was it with John Hunter, who, finding the emoluments from his half-pay and private practice insufficient to support him, determined on teaching practical anatomy and operative surgery. With the pecuniary means which he was thus enabled to raise, he purchased about two miles from London a piece of ground near Brompton, at a place called Earl's Court, and there built a house for the purpose of experiments, which he could not carry on successfully in a large town.