Everard Home and the destruction of the John Hunter manuscripts: "The name of Sir Everard Home has passed down through the pages of medical history as a byword for apostasy, for ingratitude, for infidelity to himself, to his family and to science. Virtually every historian or biographer who mentions John Hunter takes pains to emphasize the undeniable fact that the greater part of Hunter's written contributions have been lost to posterity through the folly of his brother-in-law, SIr Everard Home, who as his acting executor came into possession of Hunter's manuscripts at his death, and who burned them thirty years later. Almost without exception, historians have repeated the accusation of William Clift, Hunter's amanuensis, that Home had plagiarized the materials he held in trust and destroyed the papers to cover his own defection, and the basic assumption is commonly accepted that Home's action was deliberate malfeasance. This is a reinvestigation of the reported facts concerning the destruction of the papers". -- Preface, p.3-4.
William Hunter and his contemporaries: "William Hunter has long been familiar to medical historians as an illustrious and influential obstetrician of the eighteenth century, and as the instigator in Great Britain of modern and enlightened methods of anatomical teaching and investigation. Although well worthy, in his own right, of a prominent position in the annals of medical fame, he has been overshadowed to a considerable extent by the brilliant achievements of his younger brother John. During their lives, John and William were bitter rivals. Indeed, there are no doubt many by whom William is remembered chiefly as an adversary for John, and as an over-anxious contestant for the honour of first credit for unraveling the complications of the vascular relationship in the placenta. This ancient controversy was reviewed and apparently settled in John's own favor by a careful examination of the brother's own written statements. Additional light, however, may well be thrown on the problem by an inquiry into some of the brothers' especial traits of personality and character. John Hunter has been clearly presented to posterity by a legion of biographical studies, all of which agree in portraying him as an individual of outstanding integrity, candid to a fault, and consummately honourable. William, in contrast, has remained a more shadowy figure. This study, therefore, will attempt to give substance to William Hunter from the fragments of evidence that are extricable from his own words and from the records of some of his contemporaries, in the hope that thereby a deeper insight may be gained into the personal as well as the scientific attributes of the elder of the two brothers who were the paramount leaders of British medicine in the eighteenth century."--Preface, p.109-110.
