Brown cloth binding with gilt title on the front board.

We provide an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available

• Note: This book carries a £5.00 discount to those that subscribe to the F.B.A. mailing list 

For the conditions of this very rare book, please view our extensive photographs. This oration set the tone of the medical scene until the end of the 19th century. First edition.

The Hunterian Society, one of the oldest in England, was founded in 1819 by Dr. William Cooke, a general practitioner, and Mr. Thomas Armiger, a surgeon, both practicing in the City and east district of London. The Society was named to honour John Hunter, the Father of Scientific Surgery, to whose lifetime of teaching and innovative experimentation the Society was then, and is yet now, dedicated to celebrate.

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”..

Hunterian Society awards: The Hunterian Medal, the Hunterian Scholarship(s) and the Hunterian Prize and are awarded at the discretion of the council.

The Hunterian Medal shall be awarded at the discretion of Council from time to time to an individual who is judged to have made an outstanding contribution to the Science and Practice of Medicine.

The Hunterian Scholarship: to assist with the fees and examination for the History of Medicine Course of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London, shall be awarded at the discretion of Council from time to time to a fully registered, non-Consultant grade doctor, dentist, medical scientist, medical student or dental student on the basis of the submission of a dissertation with some relevance to John or William Hunter or medicine in the 18th century.

The Hunterian Prize: The Society awards an annual prize of £500, to a student or practitioner of non-consultant grade in medicine or dentistry or a medical scientist, on the basis of an essay which may be modern but should have a Hunterian flavour. The shortlisted essays will be given as presentations to a meeting of the Society at Lettsom House.