Cruikshank, William Cumberland

(b. Edinburgh, Scotland, 1745; d. London, England, 27 June 1800)

anatomy.

Cruikshank was the second son of George Cruikshank, supervisor of excise in Glasgow. At the age of fourteen he was sent to the University of Glasgow to study divinity; he matriculated on 14 November 1764 and gave his probationary sermon. Cruikshank put his mastery of Greek, Latin, and French to practical use by giving lessons to other students. On 30 September 1766 he was granted a bursary for two years for the study of theology; it was renewed in 1768 and again in 1770. After receiving the M.A. in 1767, he was appointed tutor in several leading Scottish households, including that of the earl of Dundonald. He became an acquaintance of John Moore, the father of James Carrick Moore, a surgeon; of Sir John Moore, who distinguished himself in the Peninsular War; and of Admiral Sir Graham Moore, the jolly friend of Creevey and the prince regent. Moore encouraged Cruikshank’s interest in medicine, particularly in anatomy; and when, in April 1771, William Hunter and William Hewson dissolved their partnership in the Windmill Street School of Anatomy, Cruikshank, on Moore’s recommendation, was invited to undertake the care of Hunter’s library and museum. His anatomical skill could not fail to recommend him to his new master. To extend the scope of his studies he entered on 31 May 1773 as a surgical pupil at St. George’s Hospital, possibly under John Hunter; and before long he took Hewson’s place as partner in the anatomy school.

Cruikshank had an unusually good memory and delighted his students not only by his manner of teaching but also by the elegant classical quotations with which he embellished his lectures. In addition he enhanced his reputation by his researches, most of which were suggested and supervised by William Hunter. Reports of his success in injecting the lymphatic vessels in the lungs (and occasionally the thoracic duct) with quicksilver were made in the Medical and Philosophical Commentaries in 1774; and two years later, in the same journal, he described “a disease which is not uncommon here”—the presence of loose cartilages in joints—and the method of cure proposed by John Hunter. His “Experiments on Nerves, Particularly on Their Reproduction; and on the Spinal Marrow of Living Animals” was communicated by John Hunter to the Royal Society on 13 June 1776 but was not published until 1795.

In 1778 he carried out a series of experiments to confirm Regnier de Graaf’s theories on generation in the rabbit; his observations were reported to the Royal Society by Everard Home on 23 March 1797. In his historical introduction to this paper Cruikshank mentions that in 1672 De Graaf had seen the ovum of a rabbit but “had the fate of Cassandra, to be disbelieved even when he spoke the truth!” Discussing this subject with William Hunter in 1778, Cruikshank remarked that he would like to repeat De Graaf’s experiments and was immediately encouraged to pursue the project. Twenty-nine experiments were performed; and from them he was able to state that the ovum is formed in, and comes out of, the ovarium after conception. It then passes down the fallopian tube, in which it is sometimes retained and prevented from entering the uterus. A successful passage to the uterus takes four days. De Graaf did not see the fetus until the tenth day, whereas Cruikshank saw it on the eighth; and De Graaf observed only one ovum, while Cruikshank observed twenty-eight. By means of these experiments Cruikshank was able to throw some light on human reproduction, particularly on the causes of extrauterine pregnancies.

Cruikshank published accounts of three more investigations in 1779: a new method of introducing mercury into the circulation, the absorption of calomel from the internal surface of the mouth, and the insensible perspiration of the human body.

Cruikshank’s best-known piece of research was The Anatomy of the Absorbing Vessels of the Human Body (1786). Like the Hunters, he maintained that the red veins do not possess any absorbent power and that “the lacteals and lymphatics of the human body are not a trifling appendage of the red veins, but form of themselves a grand system for absorption and, so far as we have yet discovered them, are not only equal in number to the arteries and veins, but actually surpass them” (1st ed., p. 187; 2nd ed., p. 207). William Hunter offered to make this a joint work but died before it was completed. Since he left no provision for the cost of the numerous proposed illustrations, there were only three in the first edition and five in the second. The drawings were the work of Frederick Birnie, Hunter’s amanuensis and artist, and the engravings were by Thornthwaite.

After William Hunter’s death in March 1783, the anatomy school was left jointly to his nephew, Matthew Baillie, and to Cruikshank; they continued with unabated success the courses of lectures for which it had become famous.

Cruikshank had a large, although not very lucrative, practice. At that time public dispensaries were few, and the sick poor therefore suffered great hardships. This situation led Cruikshank to give treatment free of charge at his own house; but the numbers who took advantage of his charity soon became embarrassing, and after a while he had to curtail this service.

Throughout his life Cruikshank suffered from a nervous affliction that impaired his manual dexterity and prevented him from reaching a high rank in surgery. Nevertheless, recognition of his valuable contributions to medical knowledge came from many sources. In 1783 he received the M.D. at the University of Glasgow; and he was invited to become an honorary member of the Lyceum Medicum Londinense (founded by George Fordyce and John Hunter in 1785), of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh, and of the Imperial Academy of Vienna. He was a candidate for the professorship of anatomy at the Royal Academy, to succeed William Hunter. Samuel Johnson wrote to Sir Joshua Reynolds on his behalf, but the choice fell upon John Sheldon.

Cruikshank was one of those who attended Johnson during hid last illness without fee; he inherited a book of his own choice—Johnson’s copy of Samuel Clark’s edition of Homer. On 1 June 1797 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society; that September he was called upon to attend—at a fee of a guinea a day—probably his most distinguished patient, Admiral Horatio Nelson, whose arm had been amputated two months previously.

After his marriage in 1773 Cruikshank settled in Leicester Square, next door to Sir Joshua Reynolds, whom he attended professionally (his treatment was much criticized). The oldest of his four daughters married Honoratus Leigh Thomas, president of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1829 and 1838.

In anticipation of the time when William Hunter’s museum would be transferred to the University of Glasgow, Cruikshank prepared a supplementary collection to illustrate his lectures, sparing neither time nor expense. This had to a large extent been accomplished at the time of his sudden death, the immediate cause of which was apoplexy. His financial affairs were found to be far from flourishing; and his family accepted an offer from the czar to purchase his museum, which was placed in the Medico-Chirurgical Academy in St. Petersburg in 1805.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I Original Works. Cruikshank’s writings are a report on his success in injecting quicksilver, in Medical and philosophical Commentaries by a Society of Physicians in Edinburgh, 1 (1774), sec. 3, 430; a report on the presence of loose cartilages in joints, ibid., 4 (1776), sec. 3, 342–347; “Remarks on the Absorption of Calomel From the Internal Surface of the Mouth, With a Preliminary Sketch of the History and Principal Doctrines of Absorption in Human Bodies,” in Peter Clare, Essay on the Cure of Abscesses by Caustic, Ist ed.(London, 1779), also published separately; Remarks on the Insensible Perspiration of the Human Body Showing Its Affinity ofRespiration (London, 1779); 2nd ed., 1795), trans. into German by C. F. Michaelis (1798); “Remarks on the New Method of Introducing Mercury Into the Circulation,” in Peter Clare, Essay on the Cure of Abscesses by Caustic, 1st ed.(London, 1779), pp. 89–154 (introductory remarks by William Hunter); The Anatomy of the Absorbing Vessels of the Human Body (London, 1786; 2nd ed., 1790), trans. into French by Petite-Radel as Anatomie des vaisseaux absorbans du corps humain (Paris, 1787) and into German by C. F. Ludwig as part of Geschichte and Beschreibung der einsaügenden Gefässe oder Saugadern des menschlichen Körpers. Mit einigen Anmerkungen and Kupfertafeln vermehrt… III (Leipzig, 1794); “Experiments on Nerves, Particularly on Their Reproduction; and on the Spinal Marrow of Living Animals,” in philosophical Transactions of the RoyalSociety, 85 (1795), 177–189; and “Experiments in Which, on the Third Day After Impregnation the Ova of Rabbits Was Found in the Fallopian Tubes and on the on the Fourth day After Impregnation in the Uterus Itself; With the First Appearance of the Foetus,” ibid., 87 (1797), 197–214.

Proof sheets of Remarks on the Insensible Perspiration of the Human Body… with MS notes by Cruikshank, are in the library of the Royal College of Surgeons, as are MS notes of Cruikshank’s courses in anatomy, physiology, and surgery, taken by various students; the latter provide a valuable source of information on the style and content of his lectures.

II. Secondary Literature. On Cruikshank or his work, see James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, L. L. D., IV (London, 1824), 356, 394; Thoms J. Pettigrew, Medical Portrait Gallery: Biographical Memoirs of the Most Celebrated physicians, Surgeons, etc… (London, 1838–1840), II, no.6; and Honoratus Leigh Thomas, Hunterian Oration (1827), pp. 11–28. Also of value are Annals of Medicine, 5 (1800), 497–503; Annual Register, XLII (1800), chronicle 62; Dictionary of National Biography, XIII (1888), 260–261; and European Mangazine, 12 (1800), 171.

Jessie Dobson