John Hunter's Directions for preserving animals

Abstract

Directions for preserving animals, an undated anonymous pamphlet, privately published by the famous anatomist John Hunter (1728–1793), has not been a subject of a dedicated study so far in spite of its importance as a set of instructions influencing zoological collecting throughout the nineteenth century. A donation entry in the 1788 edition of Regulations and laws of the Lyceum Medicum Londinense allowed assigning 1788 as the most probable publication year of Hunter's pamphlet. The bibliographic analysis of Hunter's private press publications shows that the pamphlet was likely to have been produced by the same press. The pamphlet was reprinted in an amended form in 1809, and further amendments were done for the 1826 and 1835 editions published by the Royal College of Surgeons in London. In spite of Richard Owen (1804–1892) claiming a (co-)authorship of the 1835 edition, there is no evidence that his role exceeded minor editorial corrections. Since Owen made a reference in his correspondence to Hunter's manuscript instructions that he supposedly used in the preparation of the 1835 edition, an attempt was made to trace published and unpublished manuscript instructions for zoological collecting that could be attributed to Hunter. Manuscripts of the Society for Promoting Natural History preserved at the Linnean Society of London showed involvement of John Hunter and Everard Home (1756–1832) in the preparation of a hitherto undescribed comprehensive set of instructions for natural history collectors that was planned to be published by the Society.