 william hunter  (23 may 1718 â 30 march 1783) was a scottish anatomist and physician. he was a leading teacher of anatomy, and the outstanding obstetrician of his day. his guidance and training of his ultimately more famous brother, john hunter, was also of great importance. ==early life and career== he was born at long calderwood â now a part of east kilbride, south lanarkshire â the elder brother of john hunter. after studying divinity at the university of glasgow, he went into medicine in 1737, studying under william cullen. arriving in london, hunter became resident pupil to william smellie (1741â44) and he was trained in anatomy at st george's hospital, london, specialising in obstetrics. he followed the example of smellie in giving a private course on dissecting, operative procedures and bandaging, from 1746. his courtly manners and sensible judgement helped him to advance until he became the leading obstetric consultant of london. unlike smellie, he did not favour the use of forceps in delivery. stephen paget said of him: :"he never married; he had no country house; he looks, in his portraits, a fastidious, fine gentleman; but he worked till he dropped and he lectured when he was dying."garrison, fielding h. 1914. an introduction to the history of medicine. saunders, philadelphia. p. 269. to orthopaedic surgeons he is famous for his studies on bone and cartilage. in 1743 he published the paper on the structure and diseases of articulating cartilages â which is often cited â especially the following sentence: âif we consult the standard chirurgical writers from hippocrates down to the present age, we shall find, that an ulcerated cartilage is universally allowed to be a very troublesome disease; that it admits of a cure with more difficulty than carious bone; and that, when destroyed, it is not recoveredâ. ==later career== [[file:hunterw table 12.jpg|thumb|upright|page from the anatomy of the human gravid uterus e
1718_births 1783_deaths 18th-century_Scottish_medical_doctors Alumni_of_the_University_of_Glasgow British_book_and_manuscript_collectors Fellows_of_the_Royal_Society People_from_South_Lanarkshire Scottish_anatomists Scottish_scholars_and_academics