[1] Ottley's "Life of Hunter," p. 97. Of other experiments by Hunter we know more. Sometimes his observations were of a character that illustrates his environment. In his "Observations" Hunter tells us that at one time, on going to bed at night, he "observed bugs, marching down the curtains and head of the bed; of those killed, NONE had blood in them." In the morning "I have observed them marching back, and all such were found FULL OF BLOOD!"[2] A wonderful discovery for a philosopher to record, leaving unmentioned the one experiment and observation by which his fame is to be linked with that of Harvey! [2] Letter to Ottley, "Life," p. 89. Hunter had erroneous views on various matters of science. He believed that there was "no such thing as a primary colour, every colour being a mixture of two, making a third." He tells us that he once formed a theory that if a human being were completely frozen, "life might be prolonged a thousand years, he might learn what had happened during his frozen condition."[3] His biographer, Ottley, alludes to this theory of Hunter's as "a project which, if realized, he expected would make his fortune."[4] With this not altogether admirable object in view, his experiments upon freezing animals were doubtless made. A dormouse, confined in a cold mixture, he tells us, "showed signs of great uneasiness; sometimes it would curl itself into round form to preserve its extremities and confine the heat, and finding that ineffectual, would then endeavor to escape." Its feet were at last frozen, but Hunter could not freeze the entire animal because of the protection afforded by the hair. How should the scientist overcome this difficulty? He pondered over the problem; then made a dormouse completely wet over, and placed it in the freezing-mixture. The wretched animal "made repeated attempts to escape," but without avail, and finally became quote stiff. Alas, for the grand "fortune"! Hunter tells us that "on being thawed, it was found quite dead!"[1] [3] "Lectures," i. 284. [4] Ottley's "Life of Hunter," p. 57. [1] Hunter's Works, vol. iv., p. 133. The influence of Hunter upon English biology was undoubtedly very great. In a mean and sordid society, he was an enthusiast for the acquisition of knowledge, and while his passion for physiology induced--as it so often does--an indifference regarding the infliction of pain, his pitiless vivisections were not more cruel than experiments made in this twentieth century, and some of them by men of national reputation. He was the type of the class of experimenters whom Dr. Johnson had in his mind, men whose long practice in the infliction of torment creates an indifference to the ordinary emotions of humanity, so that even in the causation of agony they find something "to amuse," and in the performance of the most painful vivisection an occasion for "supreme delight." CHAPTER IV MAGENDIE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES