Abstract
FOR some years past it has been a custom at the College of Surgeons for the Conservator to collect the various specimens that have been mounted during the preceding twelve months into one room; enabling not only the Museum Committee, but the members of the medical profession, or visitors introduced by them, to see at a glance the additions that have been made during that period. We consider the plan to be an excellent one. It is a powerful incentive to the Conservator to work so that each year's results may surpass the previous one; whilst it calls forth gifts from those who have the opportunity of obtaining rare or valuable specimens, when they see what loving care and diligence are spent on their preparation and exhibition, and to how large a number they afford instruction. We had recently an opportunity of minutely inspecting these additions, and must express our warm admiration at their number and beauty. The Museum, as every naturalist knows, was commenced by the genius of Hunter, who, recognising the value that would attend the comparison of the same organ in the different groups of animals in enabling us to acquire precise knowledge of its function, and to penetrate the mysteries of disease, collected from all quarters typical specimens which he carefully dissected and described; but worker as he was the preparations he left have constituted but landmarks for the direction of succeeding observers. Although neither his time, strength, nor opportunity permitted that he should bring home more than a few examples displaying the wondrous fertility of the new region he had discovered, his success stimulated others to do their utmost. Preparation after preparation of every organised being that could be obtained by purchase or gift was rapidly added, and many times it has been found necessary to enlarge the receptacle for the sake of the new and important preparations that had been obtained, till at length it has attained its present lordly dimensions, and stands without a rival in the world. Nothing, perhaps, could give such an idea of the vast increase it has undergone—which would surely have well pleased its founder, could he have seen how his small though valuable beginnings had increased and multiplied—as the fact that a roomful of preparations that would handsomely furnish forth an entire country museum, is year by year absorbed into it, and scarcely appreciably augments its size.
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The Annual Report of the Royal College of Surgeons. Nature 2, 330–331 (1870). https://doi.org/10.1038/002330a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/002330a0