Life

Born at Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 in 1729 (the Memoir says 1733), he was eldest son of a prosperous druggist. He was sent to the grammar school

Grammar school

A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...

 at ten, and at fifteen to the university, where he remained until he was twenty-one, having devoted the last three years to medicine. He spent the next year or two studying in London, in Rouen (under Le Cat), and in Paris (under Petit), and on his return to Edinburgh graduated M.D. in 1753 (thesis, ‘De Cantharidibus’). After practising for a few months at Gainsborough

Gainsborough, Lincolnshire

Gainsborough is a town 15 miles north-west of Lincoln on the River Trent within the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. At one time it served as an important port with trade downstream to Hull, and was the most inland in England, being more than 55 miles from the North...

, and a few years at Beverley

Beverley

Beverley is a market town, civil parish and the county town of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, located between the River Hull and the Westwood. The town is noted for Beverley Minster and architecturally-significant religious buildings along New Walk and other areas, as well as the Beverley...

, he was invited to York

York

York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...

 in 1763, on the death of Dr. Perrot, and continued to practise there until his death in 1809.

In 1772 Hunter set to work to establish the York Lunatic Asylum. The building was finished in 1777, and Hunter was physician to it for many years. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (London) in 1777, and F.R.S. (Edinburgh) in 1790. He was also made an honorary member of the Board of Agriculture.

He died on 17 May 1809, and was buried in St Michael le Belfrey, York.

Works

His first literary venture was a small tract in 1764, an ‘Essay on the Nature and Virtues of the Buxton Waters,’ which went through six editions. The last appeared in 1797 under the name of ‘The Buxton Manual.’ In 1806 he published a similar work on the ‘Waters of Harrowgate,’ York. He took an active part in founding the Agricultural Society at York in 1770, ‘and to give respectability to the institution, he prevailed on the members to reduce their thoughts and observations into writing.’ These essays, on the food of plants, composts, &c., were edited by him in four volumes (London, 1770–2), under the title of ‘Georgical Essays,’ and were so much valued as to be reprinted three times (once at London and twice at York) before 1803. His ‘New Method of Raising Wheat for a Series of Years on the Same Land’ appeared in 1796, York.

His continued interest in rural economy was shown in an elaborate illustrated edition, with notes, of John Evelyn

John Evelyn

John Evelyn was an English writer, gardener and diarist.Evelyn's diaries or Memoirs are largely contemporaneous with those of the other noted diarist of the time, Samuel Pepys, and cast considerable light on the art, culture and politics of the time John Evelyn (31 October 1620 – 27 February...

's Sylva

Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-Trees and the Propagation of Timber

Sylva, or A Discourse on Forest-Trees and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesty's Dominions by the English writer John Evelyn was first published in 1662 as a paper to the Royal Society...

, 1776 (reprinted in 1786, in 2 vols. in 1801, and again, after his death, in 1812). In 1778 he edited Evelyn's Terra, and joined it to the third edition of the Sylva, 1801. In 1795 he addressed a pamphlet to Sir John Sinclair

Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet

Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet was a Scottish politician, writer on finance and agriculture and the first person to use the word statistics in the English language, in his vast, pioneering work, Statistical Account of Scotland, in 21 volumes.Sinclair was the eldest son of George Sinclair of...

 on ‘Outlines of Agriculture’ (2nd edit. 1797). In 1797 he published ‘An Illustration of the Analogy between Vegetable and Animal Parturition,’ London.

He was author of a tract on the curability of consumption

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

, extracted from a manuscript of William White of York, of which a French translation by A. A. Tardy (London, 1793) appeared; and also of a cookery-book, called ‘Culina Famulatrix Medicinæ,’ first published in 1804, reprinted in 1805, 1806, and 1807, and finally in 1820 under the title ‘Receipts in Modern Cookery.’ A production of his old age, which became well known, was a collection of maxim

Maxim (philosophy)

A maxim is a ground rule or subjective principle of action; in that sense, a maxim is a thought that can motivate individuals.- Deontological ethics :...

s called ‘Men and Manners; or Concentrated Wisdom.’ It reached a third edition in 1808; the last edition contains 1,146 maxims.

Family

He was twice married, first, in 1765, to Elizabeth Dealtry of Gainsborough, by whom he had two sons and one daughter, who predeceased him, and secondly, in 1799, to Anne Bell of Welton

Welton, East Riding of Yorkshire

Welton is a village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated approximately north of the town of Brough on the north side of the A63 road to Kingston upon Hull....

, near Hull, who survived him.