of our science, the proudest trophies of his fame, are posthumous. For with the solitary but splendid exception of the operation for the cure of the popliteal aneurism, how imperfect a title would the most elaborate recital of his merits as a surgeon prove, to the admiration and gratitude associated with his name!
No, it is to his discoveries as an observer, sagacious, comprehensive and profound, of the animal machine and its ceconomy, in health and in disease,—his development of the phenomena which characterise inflammation in all textures, in its several aspects, stages and processes, of the signs by which they are indicated, the laws by which they are governed, the consequences to which they lead, and the modes of treatment by which they are influenced and regulated to subserve nature’s and our purposes,—it is to these that we point with a national and honest pride, as to the column upon which are engraved in imperishable characters the surgical triumphs of John Hunter.
He was not remarkable either for his skill as an operator, or his facility of communicating knowledge as a teacher. He was not a scholar; and neither the arrangement of his thoughts, nor the language in which they are clothed, is free from many and obvious exceptions. But the habitual character of his mind, which in the largest sense imparted itself to his works, was acutely observant, profoundly contemplative, capable of large and comprehensive views of na-
