Note 905 — Chapter V · (continued 3)

Hunter died in 1793. In 1835, Mr. Palmer writes: ‘Those who have traced the progress of modern surgery to its true source, will not fail to have discerned, in the principles which Hunter established, the germs of almost all the improvements which have been since introduced.’ Hunter's Works, vol. i. p. vii. Eighteen years later, Mr. Paget says of Hunter's views respecting the healing of injuries: ‘In these sentences, Mr. Hunter has embodied the principle on which is founded the whole practice of subcutaneous surgery; a principle of which, indeed, it seems hardly possible to exaggerate the importance.’ Paget's Lectures on Surgical Pathology, London, 1853, vol. i. p. 170. At pp. 197, 198: ‘After what I have said respecting the process of immediate union, it may appear that Mr. Hunter was more nearly right than his successors.’