The Hunterian Museum (Glasgow)

Abstract

The Hunterian museum is open again. Constructed on the basis of William Hunter’s bequest and opened in 1807, it moved to its present site, the Gilbert Scott Building at the University of Glasgow, in 1870. After nearly two years of roof repairs the museum re-opened in September 2011. William Hunter (1718–1783) was an obstetrician, anatomist, teacher, scientific researcher and collector. Above all else, he was a self-made man who accumulated knowledge, wealth, artefacts and standing. He was born in East Kilbride, just south of Glasgow, the seventh of ten children. He attended the University of Glasgow (1731–1736) and then became apprentice to William Cullen (1710–1790) in Hamilton. He moved to London in 1740 to pursue further surgical training, attaching himself successively to two notable Scottish expatriate man-midwives: William Smellie (1697–1763) and James Douglas (1675–1742). By dint of consistent and unflagging endeavour he became the best anatomical lecturer and built a large and famous obstetric practice. He made notable scientific advances and became a Fellow of the Royal Society and Anatomy Professor at the Royal Academy. He accumulated great wealth, which he converted into a collection of books, paintings, medals, coins and anatomical/pathological specimens (Figures 1 and 2). This collection forms the basis of the museum. In Ellis’s A History of Surgery, it is William’s younger brother John who is attributed the major part in the development of surgery, though John’s academic debt to his older brother is acknowledged. Ten years apart (in birth and in death), the brothers were quite different characters. William was small, earnest, elegant, cultured, eloquent and always hard-working (Stephen Paget summarized: ‘He never married; he had no country house; he looks, in his portraits, a fastidious, fine gentleman; but he worked till he dropped and he lectured when he was dying’). By contrast, John was ungainly, broad-shouldered, strong and noted for profanity. The transformation of John from difficult wayward child to genius, anatomist and surgeon has been attributed to his older brothers James and (more particularly) William. William had arranged for his brother’s entrance to Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford – but John left after two months, proclaiming, in response to the tutors’ efforts to school him in Latin and Greek, ‘These schemes I cracked like so many vermin!’ John became an admirable practical anatomist and dissector for his brother, and for many years they were friendly and mutually supportive. However, the relationship between the two brothers deteriorated. It is unclear whether this was due to arguments over priority, affiliation, John’s marriage or jealousy over specimens or appointments (the appointment of John to the Royal Society antedated that of William). By 1780 their estrangement was complete, with bitter contestation at the Royal Society over precedence for the discovery of the nature of maternal circulation through the placenta. In the museum today under the banner of ‘The Enlightenment’ – the Age of Reason – is a quotation by Voltaire: ‘We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation’. Prominent figures in the 18th-century Scottish Enlightenment include Adam Smith (1723–1787), Professor of Moral Philosophy (1752–1763), economist and author of the Wealth of Nations; Thomas Reid (1710–1796), Professor of Moral Philosophy (1763– 1796); William Cullen (1710–1790), Professor of Medicine (1751–1756); Joseph Black (1728–1799),