James Hinton (surgeon)

James Hinton (26 November 1822 – 16 December 1875) was an English surgeon and author.

He was born at Reading, the son of John Howard Hinton (1791-1873), Baptist minister and author of the "History and Topography of the United States" and other works. James was educated at his grandfather's school near Oxford, and at the Nonconformist school at Harpenden, and in 1838, on his father's removal to London, was apprenticed to a woollen-draper in Whitechapel. After working there for about a year he became clerk in an insurance office. His evenings were spent in intense study, and this, combined with a concentration on moral problems, so affected his health that, aged eighteen, he tried to seek refuge from his own thoughts by running away to sea. His intention having been discovered, he was sent, on the advice of his doctor, to St Bartholomew's Hospital to study for the medical profession. After receiving his diploma in 1847, he was for some time assistant surgeon at Newport, Essex, but the same year he went out to Sierra Leone to take medical charge of the free labourers on their voyage thence to Jamaica, where he stayed some time. He returned to England in 1850, and entered into partnership with a surgeon in London, where he soon had his interest awakened specially in aural surgery, and also studied physiology.

His career as an author started in 1856 with papers on physiological and ethical subjects to the "Christian Spectator"; and in 1859 he published "Man and his Dwellingplace". A series of papers entitled "Physiological Riddles," in the "Cornhill Magazine", afterwards published as "Life in Nature" (1862), as well as another series entitled "Thoughts on Health" (1871), proved his aptitude for popular scientific exposition. After being appointed aural surgeon to Guy's Hospital in 1863, he soon acquired a reputation as the most skillful aural surgeon of his day, which was fully borne out by his works, "An Atlas of Diseases of the membrana tympani" (1874), and "Questions of Aural Surgery" (1874). His health broke down, and in 1874 he gave up practice; and he died at the Azores of acute inflammation of the brain.

In addition to the works already mentioned, he was the author of "The Mystery of Pain" (1866) and "The Place of the Physician" (1874). On account of their fresh and vigorous discussion of many of the important moral and social problems of the times his writings had a wide circulation on both sides of the Atlantic.

His "Life and Letters", edited by Ellice Hopkins, with an introduction by Sir WW Gull, appeared in 1878.

Portrayal in fiction

Because of his association with Sir William Withey Gull, Hinton has been indirectly associated with the murders of Jack the Ripper.

In their fictional graphic novel on the Ripper, "From Hell", authors Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell extend Hinton's concern over social problems to prostitution in Whitechapel, which became the hunting grounds for the Ripper after his death. Their suggestion is that his concerns over prostitution among the lower classes greatly influenced Gull, who was put forward as a Ripper suspect in Stephen Knight's widely discredited 1976 book, "Jack the Ripper - The Final Solution".

In "From Hell," Hinton is portrayed as an idealistic doctor given to "passionate outbursts" and flights of metaphysical theorizing and speculation. His character is used as a complementary figure to the more worldly - and less compassionate - Dr. Gull.

It should be noted that Hinton's association with the murders has much to do with both Knight's book and Iain Sinclair's novel "White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings".

References

1. Mind, Vol 1, No 2 (Apr, 1876), pp247-252 by J. F. Payne. Published by: Oxford University Press.

*1911