The place of the Tudor Surgeons in English Literature / by Sir D'Arcy Power, K.B.E., F.R.C.S.

  • Power, D'Arcy, Sir, 1855-1941.
Date:
[1927?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The place of the Tudor Surgeons in English Literature / by Sir D'Arcy Power, K.B.E., F.R.C.S. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Section of the History of Medicine 59 &c., &c., the whole fitted for the meanest capacities. Illustrated with near 40 copper cuts London, Printed for Howland Reynolds next door to the Golden Bottle in the Strand at the Middle Exchange door, 1682.” The preface to The English midioife, enlarged, addressed “ to all English midwives,” says:— “ You are here presented with an amendment and supplement of what was necessary and yet wanting in this book formerly: so that you will find it to be wholly completed for your purpose, in every respect: it being altogether grounded upon many years’ experience and observation in the practice of deliveries : most others being written by those that never practised the art: and some fathered upon persons that were no more concerned in them than the Pope of Rome; such as Sir Theodore de Mayern, Dr. Chamberlen and others, by the Publishers of the Compleat Midwives Practice,' so that I may justly say of this book, as the learned Sir Richard Baker says of his chronicle, that if all others were not to be found this alone were sufficient, with your diligence &c., &c.” The English Midioife enlarged is copied in great part from Wolveridge’s Speculum Matricis. The writer even adopts the catechistical method of Dr. Philadelphos and Mrs. Eutrapelia. The order of the chapters is somewhat altered and there are verbal omissions and insertions; but in the main it is a copy of Wolveridge’s work, without any acknowledgment of that author. Probably it was in the hands of the publisher Reynolds, who also sold the Speculum Matricis, and (? after the death of Wolveridge) thought it was an opportunity for bringing out a new edition. The title suggests that the book had formerly been published as The English Midwife, but I cannot find any record of the book bearing that title and the contents of The English Midwife Enlarged show that the former book was the Speculum Matricis. The author of the Speculum Matricis, James Wolveridge, was an Englishman practising in Cork. Sir Charles Cameron, in his History of the Boyal College of Surgeons of Ireland, states :— “ His name appears, but with a ‘ ? ’ before it, in Belcher’s List of the Fraternity of Physicians, Trinity Hall, Dublin, established in 1660. I find the name ‘ James Wolveridge, M.D., 1664,’ in Dr. Todd’s Roll of Graduates of the University of Dublin.” Thus the author was a graduate of but five years’ standing at the time of writing the book (1669). It begins with a chapter by The Author to The Reader, signed James Wolveridge, from my Study in Cork, January 12, 16f§. The book is not intended for the Irish but for the English, “ his countrey-folk ” ; then comes an English ode by Jonathan Ashe e Coll. Oriell, Oxon, “ To his deserving friend Dr. James Wolveridge,” followed by a Latin ode by the author on his book : to this succeeds an English ode by Aquila Smyth, M.D., “ on the Praise, and the happy delivery of James Wolveridge, Dr of Physick, in his labours on the Labour of Women, etc.” ; then follows an Encomiastichon in Latin addressed to the author by Jonathan Ashe ; another, also in Latin, by Daniel Colman ; then an ode in English by the author to his book and an Acrostick to Wolveridge by his obliged friend Richard Sampson. The author reproduces Harvey’s account of the unaided delivery of the wife of the soldier on the march, but he does not seem to have read Harvey’s work (De Generatione Animalium) appreciatively, for he says “from whence it appears the liver to be a congealed and concrete blood ” ! The chapters on Anatomy and Development of the foetus, as also the illustrations, are taken from Rueff; 1 The Compleat Midwives Practice, 1656, and The Compleat Midwives Practice Enlarged, 1659, by R.C.I.D.M.S.T.B : the second edition corrected: in this edition the names of Sir Theodore Mayern, Dr. Chambeilen and Mr. Nich. Culpepper are mentioned on the title-page. My—H 2 ^