Page:The Hunterian Oration 1832.djvu/19

15 tor the genius and success with which lie explored all living nature, deducing from researches, unequalled in extent, difficulty, and originality, a multitude of important truths, directly influencing every branch of knowledge, to which the physician, the naturalist, the physiologist, and the surgeon, respectively direct their attention. Perhaps, as far as our branch of the profession is concerned, it might not be incorrect to say, that, with the exception of the discovery of the circulation, and that of the absorbent vessels, we owe to the genius and perseverance of John Hunter, almost every thing, that first gave to the doctrines and practice of surgery a scientific complexion.

—The history of so active a labourer in the field of science, is not like that of the blank and trifling character, whose tombstone had nothing to record, but that he was born upon one day, and died upon another; two circumstances, which are common to all mankind. The life of John Hunter Mas very different from those of the men finely de-