proved in all of his life work. Ottley tells the story that,
when twitted with this lack of knowledge of the "dead languages"
in after life, he said of his opponent, "I could teach him that
on the dead body which he never knew in any language, dead or
living."

By his second year in dissection he had become so skilful that he
was given charge of some of the classes in his brother's school;
in 1754 he became a surgeon's pupil in St. George's Hospital, and
two years later house-surgeon. Having by overwork brought on
symptoms that seemed to threaten consumption, he accepted the
position of staff-surgeon to an expedition to Belleisle in 1760,
and two years later was serving with the English army at
Portugal. During all this time he was constantly engaged in
scientific researches, many of which, such as his observations of
gun-shot wounds, he put to excellent use in later life. On
returning to England much improved in health in 1763, he entered
at once upon his career as a London surgeon, and from that time
forward his progress was a practically uninterrupted series of
successes in his profession.

Hunter's work on the study of the lymphatics was of great service
to the medical profession. This important net-work of minute
vessels distributed throughout the body had recently been made
the object of much study, and various students, including Haller,
had made extensive investigations since their discovery by
Asellius. But Hunter, in 1758, was the first to discover the
lymphatics in the neck of birds, although it was his brother
William who advanced the theory that the function of these
vessels was that of absorbents. One of John Hunter's pupils,