Page:The Hunterian Oration, delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons ... February 14, 1817 (IA b22009358).pdf/41

33 whose meritorious labours in anatomy it will be the pride of future annalists to say more than delicacy at present allows.

William Hunter was one of those men who fortunately chose that profession to which their taste and talents were most congenial. Fond of anatomical researches, he necessarily excelled in the mechanical part; and being a man of learning, he became perfectly acquainted with the discoveries, the opinions, and doctrines of his predecessors. His lectures, therefore, were not confined to merely correct exhibitions and explanations of the structure of the various parts composing the human body, but conveyed also much valuable physiological information. As a public teacher of anatomy, his talents were of the very first order, as all who have had the advantage of �