John Hunter was a Scottish surgeon, one of the most distinguished scientists and surgeons of his day. He was an early advocate of careful observation and scientific methods in medicine. He was a teacher of, and collaborator with, Edward Jenner, pioneer of the smallpox vaccine. He paid for the stolen body of Charles Byrne, and proceeded to study and exhibit it against the deceased's explicit wishes. His wife, Anne Hunter (née Home), was a poet, some of whose poems were set to music by Joseph Haydn.
Painted by John Jackson, 1813, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1786
A statue of John Hunter, Scottish National Portrait Gallery
A plaster cast medallion of John Hunter, Science Museum, London
A bust of Hunter near where he lived in Leicester Square, London
Edward Jenner was an English physician and scientist who pioneered the concept of vaccines and created the smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine. The terms vaccine and vaccination are derived from Variolae vaccinae, the term devised by Jenner to denote cowpox. He used it in 1798 in the title of his Inquiry into the Variolae vaccinae known as the Cow Pox, in which he described the protective effect of cowpox against smallpox.
Edward Jenner
Jenner's handwritten draft describing the first vaccination is held at the Royal College of Surgeons in London
Jenner's 1802 testimonial to the efficacy of vaccination, signed by 112 members of the Physical Society, London
Common cuckoo