Description
Book SynopsisPercivall Pott (171388) was a leading surgeon in eighteenth-century Britain. This work mines the rich biographical and bibliographical record Pott and his students left behind to add to the historical and intellectual understanding of pre-modern surgery. This was a time when surgery was becoming professionalized. Pott maintained a significant role in crafting the image of a professional surgeon as someone who is capable of treating a multitude of poor hospital patients while at the same time effectively teaching operative skills and manners to the next generation of young men and running a successful and wealth-producing private practice.
Pott had more medical conditions named after him during his lifetime than any other surgeon of his era or since; analyzing what conditions surgeons claimed were theirs to manage and what ailments patients sought surgical solutions for reveals the importance and power of rhetoric in crafting the increasingly rigid definition of medicin
Trade Review
«Payne’s book is important in providing the first biography of Percivall Pott since his son-in-law’s sycophantic 1790 account. [...] the book will be of great interest to scholars trying to understand the profession and practice of English surgery around the turn of the nineteenth century. Students trying to learn what exactly early modern surgery entailed will also find the volume – and especially chapters three and four – useful.»
(Justin Barr, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Vol 73, No 3, 2018)
«The extent of Payne’s archival research into Pott is admirable and her book contains a wealth of fascinating material drawn from his case books and other manuscript sources. Taken together, these add considerably to our understanding of the nature and scope of eighteenth-century surgical ailments and treatments.»
(Michael Brown, H-Sci-Med-Tech September, 2018)
Full review
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations – Acknowledgments – Introduction: "What Brought Each Leaden-Headed Lad to Town, What Drew Them Hither but the Name of Pott?" – "Climbing the Ladder": Business and Surgery – "Be Firm Without Appearance of Brutality": Authority and Surgery – "He Will Talk, Until He Dies": Accidents and Violence – "A Poor Man Came to St. Bartholomew’s": Chronic Conditions – Epilogue: Pott’s Legacy: Then and Now.
