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WILLIAM CHESELDEN AND THE SEPARATION OF THE BARBERS FROM THE SURGEONS Thomas Vicary Lecture delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England on 30th October, 1952 by Sir Zachary Cope, F.R.C.S. THE BARBERS AND the Surgeons have been friendly for more than four hundred years, for even at their separation, in 1745, there was no evidence of any animosity, and at no time since has there been anything but harmony between the two bodies. This is fortunate for anyone who wishes to talk about William Cheselden, for, while Vicary worthily typifies the union of the Barbers with the Surgeons, Cheselden was almost certainly the main influence in bringing about their separation. This year celebrates the bicentenary of the death of this famous man, the only truly eminent English surgeon in the first half of the eighteenth century, the last elected Warden of the Barber-Surgeons Company, and one of the first-appointed Wardens in the newly incorporated Company of Surgeons. On the 19th October, 1688, just a fortnight before William of Orange landed in this country, William Cheselden was born at Burrow on the Hill in Leicestershire, in a house situated in an outlying part of the parish of Somerby, about ten miles east and slightly to the north of Leicester City. He was the third child and second son of George Cheselden, a yeoman farmer and a descendant of an old Rutland and Leicestershire family. William was taught the elements of knowledge at the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School (now Wyggeston School) and no doubt received a sound elementary education there. The only incident of interest in his childhood was the sustaining of a fracture of the forearm which (he tells us) was treated by a bonesetter who bound it in a bandage stiffened by a mixture of white of eggs and wheat flour. Cheselden remembered this method of treatment and, later in life, used to treat children with congenital talipes by bandaging the limb in the correct position by means of such a bandage. It has been stated that as a youth he worked for a while with a Doctor Wilkes of Leicester, but I have been unable to find any confirmation of this. When he was fifteen years old he came to London and was apprenticed to a young surgeon named James Ferne, who had recently been put on the surgical staff of St. Thomas's Hospital, which at that time was situated just south of London Bridge. While a student he is said to have lived in the house of William Cowper, the celebrated anatomist, but where this was we do not know. The fact that the Bishop's list on which he was enrolled in 1712 states that he was admitted as from St. Dunstan's in the East makes it likely that he was living in that parish, which is near the Monument. I V. ZACHARY COPE "I 7" --77 -, ", -. 1- "., William Cheselden. From the first Cheselden was a keen student of anatomy and he must have learned much from Cowper; it is possible also that he may have attended the anatomical lectures of Rolfe, who held classes in a house in Chancery Lane about this time. Rolfe left London in 1706 and William Cowper died in 1709 so that, when in 1710 Cheselden completed his apprenticeship and became a freeman of the Barber-Surgeons Com- pany, there was no one giving regular lectures on anatomy in London. The newly-fledged barber-surgeon saw his -opportunity and took it. He drew up a detailed syllabus of a course of lectures on anatomy. which he arranged to deliver three times a year. This syllabus, which extended to thirty-six pages, was printed and entered at Stationers Hall on the 8th October, 1711, when Cheselden was only twenty-three years old. The money obtained by giving these lectures must have helped to maintain him while he was waiting for patients to come. The next year he read a short paper before the Royal Society on some bones dug up from the old Roman site of Verulamium, and he was thereafter elected a Fellow 2 THOMAS VICARY LECTURE of that august Society. In this same year, 1712, he took as his first apprentice a student named Robert Hillier, who was bound to him for seven years in return for the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds. At the time Cheselden began his lectures there was no small and suitable manual of anatomy in English, so this enterprising youth wrote down the substance of his lectures, illustrated them by twenty-six plates, and in 1713 published them as a book. The moment was opportune and, though the lectures were written in a discursive style, they were interesting and lightened up with physiological discussions and accounts of surgical cases, so that the book caught the student's fancy and kept it for a hundred years. Thirteen English editions, two American editions and one German edition appeared in that hundred years, and Cheselden's anatomy must have been used by many if not most of the students who attended the classes of all the great anatomical teachers during that important period. Some of the illustrations were strikingly unusual yet remarkably instructive. Encouraged by the success of his lectures and hopeful of the prospects of his book Cheselden, in that same year, 1713, ventured to give hostages to fortune by marrying Deborah Knight, the niece of the unfortunate cashier of the South Sea Company. The young couple went to live in a house in Cheapside, next door to the Saddlers Hall, on the north side of that thoroughfare close to St. Vedast's Church; this house was only two hundred yards from Monkwell Street in which the Barber- Surgeons Hall was situated. The first year of his married life brought with it many disappointments. He had already made up his mind to be a surgeon and in 1714 he applied for a vacancy on the surgical staff at St. Thomas's, but was unsuccessful. The second disappointment was of great importance, both to Cheselden and the future of surgery. We know that Cheselden's lectures were popular and that they drew students away from the more dull official lectures delivered at the Barber-Surgeon's Hall. For purposes of demonstration and dissection, however, he needed subjects, and he took the liberty of procuring the bodies of felons from the place of execution. This he had done, unfortunately, without first obtaining permission from the authorities. For this omission he was called before the Court of the Company and censured, though he was forgiven on his promising not to repeat the offence. Though outwardly submissive Cheselden never forgot this censure, which was probably the initial motive which directed his thoughts towards the advisability of the separation of the Surgeons from the Barbers. At the time he neither wrote nor said anything publicly against the Company, but the sense of frustration lasted throughout his life until the separation took place. It was also in this fateful year that his wife was delivered of a female child, Deborah, who died in infancy. In the records of St. Vedast's there is no record of birth nor ofchristening but only of the burial of the little infant Deborah. Under the date 24th July, 1714, the churchwardens 3 V. ZACHARY COPE record the burial of the infant in the vault of St. Vedast's, and the accounts state that eight shillings and fourpence were paid for the expense of the funeral and the tolling of the " fifth" bell of the chime. Financially, the year 1714 showed some improvement, for in September William took his younger brother, Peter, as his apprentice for seven years for the sum of two hundred pounds. It is likely that his lectures were also proving remunerative for it was also in 1714 that Cheselden invested a thousand pounds in South Sea Stock which had just been offered to the public. The fact that his wife's uncle was cashier may have induced him to make this investment, but it is probable that he lost money, at a time when he could little afford to do so. In 1715 Cheselden again tried for a surgical post at St. Thomas's and again he was unsuccessful. The following year his wife bore another daughter. It is possible that the parents had been hoping for a son, as the child was christened Williamina or Wilhelmina. There was never any further addition to their family. In July, 1718, the increased surgical work at St. Thomas's made it necessary to appoint an assistant surgeon, and, from several applicants, Cheselden was chosen to fill the post. He was then aged 30. He soon proved his worth, for, when one of the senior surgeons fell ill and Cheselden deputised for him, he carried out his dpties so ably that, when his senior died, Cheselden was appointed one of the full surgeons without any competition. This was the turning point in his career for it gave him the opportunity to prove his surgical worth, and at the same time guaran- teed him at least a moderate income from the hospital honoraria and the fees from the pupils. With these new and better prospects, in 1720 he moyed from Cheapside, probably to the address in Red Lion Street, Bloomsbury, where we know he lived later. Here he was near Great Ormond Street where his friend Richard Mead lived, and quite close to Red Lion Square and Queen Square where his friends James Douglas and Jonathan Richardson respectively resided.

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