John Woodall
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John Woodall (1570–1643) was an English
Life
Woodall was the son of Richard Woodall of
Woodall is known to have then lived and worked as a surgeon in Polonia (Poland) and Stade, a Hanseatic port near Hamburg. While there he was occasionally employed as a German interpreter by visiting English ambassadors.
In 1599 he was admitted to the Barber-Surgeons Company of London as a freeman, but continued to live mainly in Holland until 1603, when he took up residence in Wood Street, London. He was able to offer treatment to victims of the bubonic plague epidemic. At unspecified times in his life he contracted plague and survived, writing of this, "...for I had it twice, namely at two severall Plague times in my Groyne."
In 1604
- "The Said Chiurgion and the Deputy shall have a place of lodging in the Yard, where one of them shall give Attendance every working day from morning until night, to cure any person or persons who may be hurt in the Service of this Company and the like in all their Ships, riding at Anchor at Deptford and Blackwell, and at Erith, where he shall also keepe a Deputy with his chest furnished, to remaine there continually until all the said ships have sayled and appointing fit and able Surgeons and Surgeon's Mates for their ships and services, as also the fitting and furnishing of their Chests with medicines and other appurtenances thereto."
Woodall's career then progressed rapidly with election as a surgeon at
He suffered a setback, however, in 1625 when he served a writ on Sir Thomas Merry, a servant of the King who owed Woodall money. For his effrontery to royal privilege, the Lord Steward had Woodall imprisoned. He was briefly released to supervise surgeon's chests for the next fleet at the request of the East India Company, but was then jailed again, and only freed after issuing a contrite apology.
In 1626 the
He was eventually dismissed by the East India Company in 1635 for financial reasons, but retained a monopoly on supplying the company's medical chests until he died in 1643, aged 73.
The Surgeon's Mate
The first edition of The Surgeon's Mate was published in 1617. Later editions contained treatise on
- "for the better curing of Wounds made by Gunshot"
- "of that most fearefull and contagious Disease called the Plague"
- and "A Treatise of Gangrena... chiefly for the Amputation or Dismembering of any Member of the mortified part."
Pages 160–176 to are devoted to "the scurvy called in Latine Scorbutum."
- We have in our owne country here many excellent remedies generally knowne, as namely, Scurvy-grasse, Horse-Reddish roots, Nasturtia Aquatica, Wormwood, Sorrell, and many other good meanes... to the cure of those which live at home...they also helpe some Sea-men returned from farre who by the only natural disposition of the fresh aire and amendment of diet, nature herselfe in effect doth the Cure without other helps. At sea, he states that experience shows that the Lemmons, Limes, Tamarinds, Oranges, and other choice of good helps in the Indies... do farre exceed any that can be carried tither from England.
Bibliography
- Bishop, WJ. The Early History of Surgery. London: Oldbourne Book Co. Ltd., 1962
- Dobson, Jessie and Walker, R. Milnes. Barbers and Barber-Surgeons. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1979.
- Druett, Joan. Rough Medicine: Surgeons at Sea in the Age of Sail. New York: Routledge, 2000.
- Graham, Harvey. The Story of Surgery. Garden City, New York: Halcyon House, 1943.
- Proceedings of the 12th Annual History of Medicine Days, WA Whitelaw - March 2003
References
- ^ Woodall, John (1617). The surgions mate, or, A treatise discouering faithfully and plainely the due contents of the surgions chest : the uses of the instruments, the vertues and operations of the medicines, the cures of the most frequent diseases at sea: namely, wounds, apostumes, vlcers, fistulaes, fractures, dislocations, with the true maner of amputation, the cure of the scuruie, the fluxes of the belly, of the collica and illiaca passio, tenasmus, and exitus ani, the callenture; with a briefe explanation of sal, sulphur, and mercury; with certaine characters, and tearmes of arte. Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine. London : Printed by Edward Griffin for Laurence Lisel, at the Tygers-head in Pauls Church-yard.
- ^ National Portrait Gallery D9056, John Woodall by George Glover, after Unknown artist, line engraving, published 1639 . Archive Collection
External links
- Biography at rootsweb
- Contribution to medicine at the Vanderbilt Medical Center, Accessed March 2007
- John Woodall: From Barber-Surgeon To Surgeon General(PDF), by Glen Hazlewood, Proceedings of the 12th Annual History of Medicine Days, University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine, 21–22 March 2003, pages 117–125
- 1617 - Surgeon's tools Illustration from The Surgion's Mate, The British Library