Hunterian Society

John Hunter

The Hunterian Society, founded in 1819 in honour of the Scottish surgeon John Hunter (1728–1793), is a society of physicians and dentists based in London.

Established by Dr William Cooke, a general practitioner, and Thomas Armiger, a surgeon, who both practiced in the City of London and the East End of London, the Society has devoted its activities for nearly two hundred years towards the pursuit of medical knowledge and learning. Meetings are always held over dinner, which precedes the subject for debate.

Between 1815 and 1828, Sir William Blizard (1743–1835), who was a former pupil of John Hunter, praised Hunter at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in three Hunterian Orations, and it is believed to be due to his influence that the new Society adopted the name 'Hunterian', rather than 'The London Medical and Physical Society', which was the name first proposed for it.

Blizard became the Society's first President and had the aim of keeping it within the Hunterian tradition. In an oration of 1826, he said: "May the honoured name of Hunter ever have a magic influence on the minds of its members".

The Society promotes an annual oration and awards an annual medal.

Hunterian Society Oration

According to the rules of the society: "The Annual Oration, to be called the Hunterian Society Oration, shall be delivered by the Orator for the current session, at a Meeting of the Society. The primary purpose of the Oration is to Commemorate the life and work of John Hunter, as also of his brother William Hunter, and to set forth the influence of the Hunterian example and tradition in the development of the science and art of Medicine. This tradition includes exact observation, experiment, and the application of anatomical and physiological science, human and comparative, to practical Medicine.It is not intended to exclude from the scope of the Annual Oration topics bearing upon the History of Medicine, and upon the relation of Medicine to other sciences and to human life in its widest sense, as well as other topics which cannot suitably be made the subject of an ordinary medical communication".. Not to be confused with the Hunterian oration at the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

• 2010: Michael Crumplin, John Hunter and Medical Aspects of the Peninsular War
• 2005: Barry M. Jones, Facial Aesthetic Surgery: The use of scientific principles to optimise outcome and limit risk.
• 2004: W. Randolph Chitwood, Robotic Cardiac Surgery - In John Hunter's Shadow
• 1992: John Kirkup, John Hunter's Surgical Instruments and Surgical Procedures
• 1986: Douglas Woolf
• 1977: S. Pasmore, John Hunter in Kensington
• 1963: Sir Stanford Cade
• 1959: Sir Arthur Porritt, John Hunter's Women
• 1954: Sir Gordon Gordon-Taylor
• 1952: George Day
• 1950: Daniel T. Davies, Johm Hunter, the Man and his Message
• 1948: William Sydney Charles Copeman
• 1947: Lord Horder, The Hunterian Tradition
• 1936: Sir G. Lenthal Cheatle, John Hunter's Time and owr own Times
• 1935: John Eyre, Undulant Fever; A Retrospect
• 1934: Basil T. Parsons-Smith, Cardiac Failure in the 18th Century and its Modern Conception
• 1928: Howard Atwood Kelly 200th Anniversary of Birth of John Hunter.
• 1928: Anthony Feiling, Sciatica: its varieties and Treatments
• 1927: Girling Ball, The Value of Modern Methods of Investigation in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Haematuria
• 1926: George Newman, The Private Practitioner as Pioneer in Preventive Medicine
• 1921: Sir Henry H. Bashford, The Ideal Element in Medicine
• 1915: Henry Russell Andrews, William Hunter and his Work in Midwifery
• 1906: A. H. Tubby, Recent Surgical Methods in the Treatment of Certain Types of Paralysis
• 1897: Richard Hingston Fox, William Hunter, Anatomist, Physician, Obstetrician
• 1891: Fletcher Beach, Psychological Medicine in John Hunter's Time and the Progress it has Since Made
• 1888: R. Clement Lucas, On the life-work of John Hunter and his Influence on Surgery
• 1887: Alfred Lewis Galabin, The Etiology of Puerperal Fever
• 1882: Robert Fowler, The attributes, professional and social, of the so-called "Family Doctor"
• 1879:John Braxton Hicks
• 1878: Peter Lodwick Burchell, A Brief Sketch of the Ancient History of Medicine
• 1876: Henry Sutton
• 1872: John Hughlings Jackson, The Physiological Aspects of Education
• 1870: Thomas Bryant on Drugs and their Uses
• 1864: Jonathan Hutchinson, The Advance of Physic
• 1861: Sir William Withey Gull
• 1855: John Snow, On Chloroform and other Anaesthetics
• 1839: William Cooke, Minds and the Emotions considered in relation to Health
• 1831: Charles Aston Key
• 1826: Sir William Blizard Inaugural Oration

Hunterian Society medal

The gold medal has been awarded annually since 1932 for the best essay on a subject selected by the society.

The silver medal has been awarded since 1908 for the best essay by a general practitioner which embodied the results of his own investigations on the subject of medicine, surgery or midwifery.

The Society gives an annual prize, which is awarded for a presentation on a subject connected to the history of medicine, which "...may be modern but should have a Hunterian flavour". The Award is of £1,000, a medal and one year's membership of the Society.

Notable members

• Sir William Blizard (President, 1819–1822)
• Sir Benjamin Travers, (President, 1827)
• Jonathan Hutchinson (President, 1869–1870)
• Thomas Bryant (President, 1873)
• John Braxton Hicks, (President, 1879)
• Philip Henry Pye-Smith
• William Henry Kelson (President)
• Sir Cecil Wakeley, (President)

Bibliography

• Findlay, David W. (ed.) The Hunterian Society - a catalogue of its records and collections relating to John Hunter and the Hunterian Tradition with a history of the society (London: The Hunterian Society, 1990)

References

• The Hunterian Society - official web site