Until about twenty years of age young Hunter had shown little aptitude for study, being unusually fond of out-door sports and amusements; but about that time, realizing that some occupation must be selected, he asked permission of his brother William to attempt some dissections in his anatomical school in London. To the surprise of his brother he made this dissection unusually well; and being given a second, he acquitted himself with such skill that his brother at once predicted that he would become a great anatomist. Up to this time he had had no training of any kind to prepare him for his professional career, and knew little of Greek or Latin--languages entirely unnecessary for him, as he proved in all of his life work. Ottley tells the story that, when twitted with this lack of knowledge of the "dead languages" in after life, he said of his opponent, "I could teach him that on the dead body which he never knew in any language, dead or living." By his second year in dissection he had become so skilful that he was given charge of some of the classes in his brother's school; in 1754 he became a surgeon's pupil in St. George's Hospital, and two years later house-surgeon. Having by overwork brought on symptoms that seemed to threaten consumption, he accepted the position of staff-surgeon to an expedition to Belleisle in 1760, and two years later was serving with the English army at Portugal. During all this time he was constantly engaged in scientific researches, many of which, such as his observations of gun-shot wounds, he put to excellent use in later life. On returning to England much improved in health in 1763, he entered at once upon his career as a London surgeon, and from that time forward his progress was a practically uninterrupted series of successes in his profession. Hunter's work on the study of the lymphatics was of great service to the medical profession. This important net-work of minute vessels distributed throughout the body had recently been made the object of much study, and various students, including Haller, had made extensive investigations since their discovery by Asellius. But Hunter, in 1758, was the first to discover the lymphatics in the neck of birds, although it was his brother William who advanced the theory that the function of these vessels was that of absorbents. One of John Hunter's pupils, William Hewson (1739-1774), first gave an account, in 1768, of the lymphatics in reptiles and fishes, and added to his teacher's investigations of the lymphatics in birds. These studies of the lymphatics have been regarded, perhaps with justice, as Hunter's most valuable contributions to practical medicine.