Page:The Hunterian Oration, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons on the 14th of February, 1834 (IA b31879792).pdf/13

9 as practical arts. Our patients cut the knot which we are unable to untie. When ill, they do not look into our nosologies and our systems, to see whether they are suffering surgically or medically; they do not trouble themselves about the respective attributes of our colleges; they resort to those, in whose talents and knowledge they place the greatest confidence, whatever may be the designation under which they practise, or the fraternity to which they belong.

JOHN HUNTER (he preferred being addressed by this or the more simple appellation, JOHN) was the youngest of ten children, and born in 1728, when his father had nearly completed his seventieth year. He was younger by ten years than his brother, DR. WILLIAM HUNTER. If any proofs of superior talent were exhibited in his early years, they have escaped the notice of his biographers, from whom we merely learn, that, from the indulgence of a fond mother for her youngest offspring, his education was neglected, that he showed a dislike to the restraints and pursuits of school, particularly to the study of languages, and that he led an idle life, without exhibiting any unusual mental activity, until he had completed his twentieth year. At this time, probably impelled by that love of natural knowledge which must have been innate in him, or by a consciousness of those powers which were so soon to shine forth in their