About this time Mr. Hunter was allowed to nominate Home as his assistant at St. George’s, and in 1792 Home undertook a further portion of his work, by delivering the surgical lectures, for which purpose he was intrusted with Mr. Hunter’s manuscripts. This enabled Mr. Hunter to give more time to the preparation of his great treatise on the Blood, Inflammation, and Gunshot Wounds, which, however, remained to be published by his executors in 1794. Death was about to claim him, and the immediate cause which led to his end was a dispute with his colleagues and the governors of St. George’s Hospital about pupils’ fees. In his treatment of pupils personally Hunter was always generous, especially when they showed ability and zeal. Thus he gave Carlisle a perpetual ticket to his lectures, having been much pleased with a preparation he brought for his acceptance, showing the internal ear very excellently. He would often also send valuable patients to young men starting in practice, and struggling with pecuniary difficulties. He never concealed from his pupils the hard work he had done to attain his position: “I’ve been here a great many years, and have worked hard too, and yet I don’t know the principles of the art,” he remarked to one. He did not, however, get on so well with his fellow-surgeons at the hospital. He so constantly insisted on the importance of studying physiology for the benefit of surgical practice, while they had been educated with little or no physiology, that his manner, as well as his pursuits, procured him the stigma of being an innovator and enthusiast. Early in 1792 one of his colleagues, Charles Hawkins, resigned the surgeoncy, and Keate, then assistant to Gunning, the senior surgeon, was elected his successor by a considerable majority, in opposition to Home, who was, of course, Hunter’s candidate. The acrimony of the contest appears to have led Hunter to announce his intention of no longer dividing with them the fees received for the surgeons’ pupils, owing, as he alleged, to his desire that the other surgeons should pay more attention to their pupils, instead of neglecting them, as he asserted they did. His right to do this was warmly contested, and the question was referred to the subscribers to the hospital. Hunter addressed them a long letter before the day of meeting, in March 1793, detailing the efforts he had made since his connection with the hospital to induce his colleagues to improve the system of instruction, which efforts had proved ineffectual: one man “did not choose to hazard his reputation by giving lectures;” another “did not see where the art could be improved.” Consequently Hunter had slackened his own efforts, causing a great falling off in the numbers of students. The other surgeons replied that they had continued the usual plan, and that if students had neglected their hospital duties to pursue physiological studies, it was not their fault. If they had