Surgeon "Turned" Physician: the Career and Writings
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SURGEON "TURNED" PHYSICIAN: THE CAREER AND WRITINGS OF DANIEL TURNER (1667-1741) PHILIP KEVIN WILSON Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University College London University of London 1992 ProQuest Number: 10630246 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10630246 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 2 ABSTRACT This thesis focuses upon the surgical and medical career and writings of the London practitioner, Daniel Turner (1667-1741). After apprenticeship, Turner entered the Barber-Surgeons* Company in 1691. His pursuit of private dissection exemplifies what he claimed was the "absolute necessity" for surgeons to gain a practical knowledge of anatomy. Turner crusaded to expose surgical "pretenders" and to reform the "vulgar" state of surgery in order to improve the care qualified surgeons could offer and to prevent the public from falling prey to "quacks". He presented apprenticeship in his Art of Surgery as a model for those entering a surgical career, endorsing it with examples from his practice. Turner's career offers a remarkable example of the struggles, successes, and failures of one individual's attempt to move upward in Augustan society. In 1711, Turner "turned" from surgery to physic, casting away the handicraft image in^attempt to enhance his social status. He increasingly displayed the trappings associated with gentility. Additionally, he used the "leisure" of his new profession to write, aspiring to the status of a man of letters. He published De Morbis Cutaneis to gain the College of Physicians' approval of his scholarship. Turner's disputatious writings illuminate several contemporary surgico-medical concerns. He denounced the prevalent theoretical medical writings as, like quackery, promoting 3 practices founded upon false principles. His conviction that skin pores transmitted externally-applied remedies inwardly was part of the contemporary dispute between surgeons and physicians over the "right" to administer "internal" physic. His pamphlet war against James Blondel over whether children's physical markings resulted from the mother's imagination illustrates contemporary differences over the identity of the imagination and the process of generation. Turner's many writings on venereal disease reveal the concern over obtaining a "recognizable" cure and how distinctions between orthodox and "quack" remedies changed between 1718^ and 1739. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements 6 Introduction 9 Part 1. Daniel Turner's Career 24 Chapter 1. Beginnings: Personal and Career 25 Chapter 2. The Art of Surgery 76 Chapter 3. Physician, Doctor of Medicine, and 131 Medical Author Chapter 4. Self-styled Gentleman in London's 170 Middle Class Part 2. Daniel Turner's Writings 214 Chapter 5. The Skin and Diseases "Incident" to 215 the Skin Chapter 6. Dispute over the Power of the 262 Maternal Imagination Chapter 7. Exposing the "Secret Disease": 311 Turner on Syphilis Conclusion 372 Appendix 1. Vernacular Surgical Treatises 380 1685-1745 Appendix 2. Altham-Turner Family Tree 383 Appendix 3. List of Books Turner gave to Yale 384 Academy Bibliography 386 TABLES AND FIGURES Figure 1.1 Freeman Admissions, Barber-Surgeons’ Company 34 Figure 1.2 Apprentices Registered, Barber-Surgeons' Company 49 Figure 1.3 Surgeons Admitted by Servitude, Barber-Surgeons' 50 Company Figure 1.4 Surgeon Admissions, Barber-Surgeons' Company 51 Figure 1.5 Sea Surgeons and Surgeons' Mates Certified 54 Figure 1.6 Surgeons Qualified in London 56 Figure 1.7 Ecclesiastical Licenses Granted 58 Figure 1.8 Apprentices "Translated", Barber-Surgeons1 61 Company Figure 2.1 Residences of Turner's Surgical Patients 82 Table 2.1 Patients's Disorders Turner Treated in 84 Art of Suraerv Table 2.2 Treatments Turner's Patients Received 89 (Physical Methods and Medications) Table 2.3 Treatments Turner's Patients Received 102 (Mechanical Procedures) Figure 4.1 Devonshire Square 175 Figure 4.2 Daniel Turner and Motto 183 Figure 4.3 Daniel Turner and Coat of Arms 186 Figure 4.4 Daniel Turner 205 Figure 4.5 Daniel Turner's Commemorative Tablet 212 Table 5.1 Contents of Daniel Turner's De Morbis Cutaneis 231 Table 5.2 Age Distribution of Turner's Patients in 234 De Morbis Cutaneis Table 5.3 Treatment Received by Turner's Patients in 236 De Morbis Cutaneis Table 5.4 Outcome of Turner's Treatments in De Morbis 241 Cutaneis Table 6.1 Blondel’s Propositions 279 Table 7.1 Vernacular English Writings on Venereal Disease 317 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i I am grateful to the many individuals who have offered their assistance, suggestions, and support throughout the preparation of this thesis. Foremost, I wish to thank the Wellcome Trust for funding a three-year studentship from 1989 to 1992 during which time this thesis was researched and written. The Trust also generously provided funding which allowed me to explore the Turner holdings in the Yale University libraries and archives. My fellow researchers at the Wellcome Institute have offered unflagging intellectual stimulation and friendship. In particular, I appreciate the conversations with "present-day philosophes" Akihito Suzuki, Sandra Cavallo, Luca Ciancio, Joy Harvey, and Holger Maehle. Research would be impossible without the assistance of librarians, archivists, and other members of the research staff. The staff at the Wellcome Institute have pleasantly eased every stage of my work. In particular, I wish to thank Lyndsay (Wilson) Lardner, Caroline Peck, Sue Gold, and Janice Wilson for their exemplary librarian assistance. Keith Moore, Gerald Beasley, John Symons, Andy Foley, Clare Dunne, Chris Carter, William Schupbach, Catherine Draycott, and David Brady have also helped fulfill a variety of research needs. Additionally, assistance from the following staff members is greatly appreciated: Andrew Baster (archivist, United Medical Schools of Guy's and St Thomas's Hospitals); Ian G. Murray (archivist, The Worshipful Company of Barbers of London); Ferenc Gyorgyey (librarian, The Historical Library, Yale Medical 7 Library); and Geoffrey Davenport (librarian, Royal College of Physicians). I also appreciate the help from librarians, archivists, and support staff at the British Library, the Guildhall Library, the University of London Library, University College London Library, the London Library, the Public Record Office, the Greater London Record Office, the Hertfordshire County Record Office, the Essex Record Office, the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the Royal Society, the Society of Genealogists, the University of Leiden, Yale University, the Huguenot Society, and Hereford Cathedral. I also extend my gratitude to Professor John A.A. Hunter and Dr G.W. Beveridge (Dermatology Department, Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh), Mrs B.H. Mary Hare (Bath), The Revd and Mrs Ronald A. Thomson (Watton-at- Stone), The Revd Alan Tanner (St Botolph Without Bishopsgate, London), The Revd Peter J. Beech (St Mary-at-Latton), R.S. Morton (Sheffield University), Milton Lewis (University of Sydney), Anthony Lawrence (University College London), Ann Dally (Wiblings Farm), Peter Earle (London School of Economics), Michael Hunter (Birkbeck College), and Gary Reading (Crystal Enterprises CAD Services). John Burrows and fellow members of our "History Through Biography" class at Wansfell College helped me remember why biographical writing remains widespread as a popular as well as an academic pursuit. I appreciate the use of the University College and Middlesex School of Medicine Computer Services Unit. Roy Porter, Andrew Wear, and Harold Cook have taken the time to read and make extensive comments on various chapters in this thesis. I truly appreciate their efforts and concern. My work would not have progressed as it did without the continued support of my supervisor, Christopher Lawrence. If he peruses this thesis and sees even a portion of the improvement I find in my own research and writing, then I hope he will think our working relationship has been successful. Cheers Chris! I will always remain most grateful to my parents, Robert and Margaret Wilson, for their loving support. Finally, I have enjoyed the privilege of having my wife, Janice Wilson, working alongside, as it were, in the Wellcome Institute Library. Not only has she been an astute critic of each chapter of this thesis, but she has answered innumerable queries about bibliographical sources throughout my research. She also helped me prepare the computerized graphs used in this thesis, and she typed a major portion of the bibliography from my, at times, cryptic notations. I remain indebted to Janice for her contini display of patience, support, encouragement, and love. DEDICATED TO MLW who, while I reconstructed an early art of surgery, was reconstructed by a present-day surgical art 9 INTRODUCTION English Surgical Practice in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries English surgical practice between 1650 and 1750 has been historically regarded as null. Historians have, with few exceptions, described surgery as a succession of "advancements" up to the period around 1650.1 Accounts of eighteenth-century English surgical practice, like that by Clifford Naunton Morgan, typically concentrate upon the last half of the century.2 Post- 1 Perhaps Sir D'Arcy Power's historical writings best exemplify this approach. Many of works are found, together with a complete bibliography in his ..Selected Writings 1877-1930. / t (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931).i-StnejDobson’s insightful account / ^ into "The Training of a Surgeon, Annals of the Roval College of Surgeons of England 34 (1964):1—36 is weighted toward early practice as is T.