Hunter, William.

Epithet: surgeon

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000001031.0x000315

Epithet: King's Messenger

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Epithet: of the Custom House

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Epithet: of Add MS 29189

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000001031.0x000310

Epithet: of Add MS 38221

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000001031.0x000311

William Hunter was an attorney. The brig John, Richard Barker, master, sailed from Charleston 18 June [1807?] for Cádiz, Spain, a blockaded port. The brig was seized by a British squadron under the command of Sir Richard Bickerton, and subsequently condemned as a prize by the British Admiralty Court.

From the guide to the Argument in the case of the brig John, 1807?, (The New York Public Library. Manuscripts and Archives Division.)

William Hunter was born on 1 June 1861 in Ballantrae on the Ayrshire coast. He was educated at Ayr Academy, and then studied Medicine at Edinburgh University, graduating in 1883 with M.B., C.M. (1st Class) 1883, and M.D. (Gold Medal) 1886. He served as a house physician at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, and as a Physican to the Western Dispensary, Edinburgh. He had also studied overseas at Leipzig in 1884 with a grant from the BMA, and during the period 1887-1890 he visited Vienna and Strasbourg. Also during 1887-1890 he worked full time on laboratory research at Cambridge, devoting himself to pernicious anaemia. From 1895, Hunter was affiliated with the Charing Cross Hospital and the London Fever Hospital. Earlier, in 1894, he married Beatrice Fielden, daughter of Joshua Fielden MP.

He was the first person to note that the alimentary and the nervous system were often affected in this disorder, and he regarded the haemolytic element as being most important and made numerous observations on the excessive pigmentation and iron deposition in the liver. Hunter, along with Julius Otto Ludwig Moeller, is associated with 'Hunter's glossitis' caused by B12 or folic acid deficiency ('Moeller-Hunter glossitis'), and he is also associated with the 'Serbian barrel' used for disinfection and the eradication of lice during the First World War in Serbia.

During the First World War, Hunter served in Serbia with the British Military Sanitary Mission where he developed de-lousing techniques to control typhus. He was appointed as a Grand Officer of the Serbian Order of St. Sava in June 1915. In January 1916 he was mentioned in Dispatches and was awarded the Companion Order of the Bath (CB). He was President of the Advisory Committee, Prevention of Disease, in the Eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamia (Gallipoli, Egypt, Salonika, Malta and Palestine), and he served with the Eastern Command, 1917-1919, as Consulting Physician. He held the rank of Colonel.

Hunter's published work includes Oral sepsis as a cause of 'Septic gastritis', 'Toxic neuritis' and other septic conditions (1901), Pernicious anaemia: its pathology, septic origin, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment. Based upon original investigations (1901), A research into epidemic and epizootic plague (1904), Severest anaemias. Their infective nature, diagnosis and treatment (1909), Historical account of Charing Cross hospital and medical school (University of London): original plan and statutes, rise and progress (1914), and The Serbian epidemics of typhus and relapsing fever in 1915 (1920). He was a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP London 1896) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE), and he was awarded an Honorary LL.D. by Edinburgh University in 1927.

William Hunter died on 13 January 1937.

From the guide to the Medals, awards and decorations of William Hunter (1861-1937), 1879-1920, (Edinburgh University Library)