Week 4_02/ 05/ 2016_ Hunter

For this week’s segment of writing, I ventured on a task more difficult than this blog post, finding a book written prior to the 19^th century, in English. After many futile attempts, I discovered a book tucked away atop the fifth floor of the library. The book found is tiled John Hunter, written by Stephen Paget. This biographical book was written in the late 1890’s and published in 1898 by Longmans, Green, and company. The book measures 8 inches long and 5 inches wide, while difficult to measure, I predict the thickness to be just shy of an inch and three quarters. As you can see in the first picture attached to this blog post, the front cover is a sage green color with a golden emboss of a snake. Along with the snake, the words “Masters of Medicine” appear within the embossment.  Within the first few pages of the text, there is a portrait of Mr. John Hunter with his signature just below the image. For your viewing pleasure I have attached a picture. Within the writing, the left margins are measured to be half an inch, and the right margins just over one and a half inches. What stood out the most with the writings format were the indentations. It appears that every indentation is only an eighth of an inch. With over 272 pages of textured parchment, the font is twelve point, comparable to a Garamond typeface. The books call number is R 489 .H9 P25.

The publishing company as mentioned above, is Longmans, Green, and company. The publisher began its first publication work in the midst of 1484 and peaked in the late 1800’s. While difficult to analyze 1,423 publications, a majority of these works focus on education, philosophy, history and biographical content. With the information provided within the book, one can make the conclusion its author, Stephen Paget, admired the work of Mr. John Hunter. Stephen Paget himself was a surgeon much like Mr. Hunter. The audience may be difficult to conjecture, however, through the subject of the text, I would predict that an individual studying the origins of modern surgery would be the target audience. While the book may be a biography, the subject was a renowned surgeon responsible for much of our information regarding anatomy. More specifically, the book call number indicates that it contains medical history and expeditions. Contained within the text, is a series of events that partook within Mr. Hunters life. While both the author, and the subject were surgeons, one may assume that aspiring surgeons would review this publication for insight into one of the most famous surgeon’s livelihood.

While weird to admit, the book has that “old” smell to it.

Paget, Stephen. John Hunter: Man of Science and Surgeon (1728-1793).

            New York: Longmans, Green, 1897. Print.