The treatment of the sick in Norwich during the seventeenth century / by Charles Williams.

  • Williams, Charles, 1827-1907.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The treatment of the sick in Norwich during the seventeenth century / by Charles Williams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    years was, therefore, abandoned, and all cases of stone and other diseases amongst the poor were brought under the powers of the Poor Law Act, and were attended to by surgeons appointed for the purpose. Among these may be mentioned the names of John Harmer and Benjamin Gooch, who achieved fame as operators and lithotomists from the experience they acquired at the workhouse. The former surgeon is known to have lithoto- mized upwards of 170 persons; the latter speaks of his “experience of lithotomy as being very considerable.” In 1771 the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital was established, and soon became the most celebrated insti- tution in the kingdom for the treatment of stone, a celebrity it has maintained to the present day. The first entry in the Assembly Books relating to a case of stone is dated May 12, 1593, 35 Eliz. 1. This clay, Betterys the wife of John Shreve of Tunstead, and Elizabeth Sheringham, were deposed and sworn that John Hubbard of Norwich, Surgeon very artificially did take from her a very great stone, on Wednesday in Ester weke in anno 1593, without cutting, and that since that time she had not been troubled with any pain of the stone. 18 May, 1616. 2. “ It is ordered that Mr. Mayhew shall have iiiilu (four pounds) for cutting of Clere’s child, and of one John Collins of the disease of the stone, whereof 20s. for Clere’s child is to be paid by the parish of St. Stephen, 20s. to be presently paid by the parish of St. Andrew, and the residue to be paid out of Hospitall (the great Hospital), upon perfecting the cure. 20s. more is appointed to be paid by the parish of St. Andrew, and it is ordered the same be equally paid and divided between two women who shall have the keeping of the said children. # Master of the Guild of Barber-Surgeons from 1612 to 1621.