nitrate—onto the end of [a hollow sliver rod cannula] and
probed the urethra ... [as Hunter recorded] “three times at two
days interval, he came to me and told me that he had made
water [urine] much better; and in applying the caustic a fourth
time, my cannula went through the stricture; a bougie was
afterward passed from some little time till he was perfectly
well,” Hunter jubilantly recorded. It was a victory for
experimental medicine. His approach—trying a traditional
method, analyzing the outcome, forming a hypothesis aimed
at improvement, and implementing his results—would
become a standard practice throughout his career. Ultimately,
it would form the foundation for his scientific revolution of
surgery.^21Like William Harvey, born 150 years before, John Hunter was an avid
naturalist and keeper of animals. Hunter had a clear advantage over
Harvey, as the British Empire held a stranglehold over the seas during
Hunter’s lifetime, permitting an exotic collection of animals from around
the world, including Asian buffalo, a lion, a jackal, a dingo, and two
leopards, which he kept at his country home west of London (in Earl’s
Court, Kensington). His outlandish assemblage of animals in close
proximity to the tony confines of London has led some scholars to believe
that Hunter was the inspiration for the children’s book character Dr.
Dolittle.^22
Endlessly curious, John Hunter gathered up newly deceased human
specimens and live animal oddities. Investigating for his own benefit (he
would not publish in the Royal Society’s Proceedings journal until 1767),
he made breakthrough discoveries about the cranial nerves in the head,
tear ducts, and the descent of the testes in young developing male humans.
Writing of the time, Benjamin Franklin said, “This is an age of
experiments,”^23 and no one characterized the epoch better than Hunter,
who performed some of the first embryological research, in characteristic
meticulous analysis and note-taking.
Most anatomists of the 18th century believed that every living being
began life as a tiny miniature version of itself, steadily increasing in size
in the womb or in an egg. John Hunter recognized this as preposterous, and