Q 01/05

Charles Byrne, the 'Irish Giant', asked to be buried where to keep his corpse from surgeon John Hunter?

A) In a vault

B) At sea

C) In quicklime

D) In Ireland

Answer · why

B) At sea

At sea was where Byrne wanted his lead coffin sunk, beyond any anatomist's reach, but Hunter had the body snatched on the road to Margate. The museum ...

Q 02/05

John Hunter's Leicester Square house reputedly inspired the home of which Victorian fictional character?

A) Dr Jekyll

B) Dr Watson

C) Dr Livesey

D) Dr Van Helsing

Answer · why

A) Dr Jekyll

Dr Jekyll's creator, Robert Louis Stevenson, published the tale in 1886. Hunter lived in the smart house on the square and did his dissecting in a sec...

Q 03/05

Which fictional character created by Hugh Lofting appears to be partly inspired by surgeon John Hunter?

A) Doctor Zhivago

B) Doctor Who

C) Doctor Dolittle

D) Doctor Strangelove

Answer · why

C) Doctor Dolittle

Doctor Dolittle talks to animals, and Hunter lived among them. He kept a large collection of living creatures to study, and prepared their skeletons a...

Q 04/05

What killed John Hunter in 1793, moments after a colleague contradicted him at a hospital board meeting?

A) A brain haemorrhage

B) An epileptic fit

C) A burst ulcer

D) A heart attack

Answer · why

D) A heart attack

A heart attack felled him in the next room. He had long said his life was in the hands of anyone who chose to annoy him, because anger had brought on ...

Q 05/05

Edward Jenner, John Hunter's pupil and lodger from 1770, later created a vaccine against which disease?

A) Diphtheria

B) Smallpox

C) Cholera

D) Typhoid

Answer · why

B) Smallpox

Smallpox was one of the great killers of Jenner's day. He and Hunter exchanged letters on natural history for the rest of Hunter's life, and in 1775 H...