Main description:

This book describes the life and achievements of the eighteenth-century Scottish physician William Hunter and outlines the history of the Museum named after him. William Hunter built up a wide-ranging private collection at his home in London, encompassing not only anatomical and pathological specimens related to his medical work, but also books and manuscripts, coins and medals, natural history specimens and artworks. On his death in 1783 he bequeathed the collection to the University of Glasgow where he had long ago been a student, and money to construct a Museum which opened in 1807. The book utilises a wide range of source material, much of it previously unpublished, to tell the story of the Museum's development, the many subsequent additions to its holdings and, more recently, the construction of a new Hunterian Art Gallery which houses not only Hunter's own collection but also numerous works be James McNeill Whistler and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The Museum is celebrating its bicentenary in 2007.
There is a foreward contributed by Sir Kenneth Calman, Chancellor of the University of Glasgow, and formerly Government Chief Medical Officer and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Durham

Contents:

Foreword; Introduction; Acknowledgements; Abbreviations used in the Notes; 1. William Hunter's Life and Career; 2. Growth of the Hunterian Collection; 3. 'The noblest Legacy upon Record'; 4. A Temple of the Muses: the first Hunterian Museum in Glasgow; 5. 'This place of fascination': the Impact of the Museum, 1807-70; 6. A new Museum for a new University, 1870-1900; 7. The Twentieth Century: War, Peace and Renewal, 1900-75; 8. The Hunterian Art Gallery; 9. Modern Times, 1975-2007; 10. Overview: Meeting William Hunter's Intentions; Postscript: Looking to the Future; Appendix: Catalogues of the Hunterian Collections; Bibliography; Index.