Caption

The pioneering Scottish surgeon and anatomist John Hunter (1728-1793) in old age. Oil painting with tinting by an unknown artist after the painting by Reynolds 1786. Colln. of photographer. Hunter lived and worked mostly in London becoming a Fellow of The Royal Society (1767) surgeon to King George III (1776) and Surgeon General (1789). Around his desk are specimens including (hanging) the celebrated Irish Giant Charles Byrne who Hunter met and later dissected. The giant is said to have requested a burial at sea to avoid this after death. The book shows skulls and limbs (monkey to man) showing gradation of form (that would encourage some to evoke evolution). Revered as medic and scientist, Hunter has recently been controversially accused, in a 2010 Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine paper by Don Shelton, of being accomplice to his brother in murdering pregnant women for research.