A Collection of Chirurgical Tracts

Part 1

Transcriber’s notes:

Several features of this book are unusual: it has two slightly different lists of contents which do not correspond precisely with the text, and there is a preface midway through the book; it has confusing page numbering (omitted from this transcription) which restarts in successive sections of the text using mixed arabic and roman numerals; the text displays an unusual mixture of italics, small capitals, full capitals, and variable letter spacing (some of which do not display correctly on handheld reading devices); much of the spelling is archaic, and both spelling and punctuation are inconsistent. Some obvious typesetting errors have been corrected but the spelling and punctuation otherwise remains true to the original text. Illustrations are only decorative, not informative.

In this transcription paired underscores denote italicised text and a ^ (caret) indicates superscripted text.

Footnotes have been positioned below the relevant paragraphs.

COLLECTION

Chirurgical Tracts.

I. Of WOUNDS of the HEAD and BRAIN.

II. NEW DISCOVERIES relating to the CURE of CANCERS.

III. CHIRURGICAL REMARKS on several curious CASES.

IV. The HISTORY and ANTIQUITY of the VENEREAL DISEASE.

V. A NEW METHOD of curing CONSUMPTIONS by Specific Medicines.

Written and Collected

By WILLIAM BECKETT,

Surgeon and F. R. S.

LONDON:

Printed for E. CURLL, in Rose Street, Covent-Garden. And Sold by C. RIVINGTON in St Paul’s Church-Yard, Mess. BIRT, WARE, LONGMAN, HITCH, WOOD and Company, in Amen Corner, Paternoster-Row, J. CLARK, in Duck-Lane, and J. HODGES, on London-Bridge. 1740.

(Price Four Shillings.)

THE

CONTENTS.

I. Some Account of Mr BECKETT’s Life and Writings. Addressed to Sir HANS SLOANE.

II. Chirurgical Remarks on Wounds of the Head and Brain.

III. New Discoveries relating to the Cure of Cancers.

IV. The Case of Dr Keil by Mr Rushworth of Northampton.

V. Three curious Dissections by John Ranby, Esq; Surgeon to his Majesty’s Household.

VI. A New Method of curing Consumptions by Specific Medicines, by Thomas Nevett, Surgeon.

VII. The Natural Secret History of both Sexes. By Luke Ogle, Esq;

VIII. Laws and Regulations of the Stews in England.

IX. The History and Antiquity of the Venereal Disease in Three Letters to Dr Douglass, Dr Wagstaffe and Dr Halley.

Part 2

To the HONOURABLE

Sir Hans Sloane, Bart.

PRESIDENT

OF THE

Royal Society, and M. D.

SIR,

It is with the greatest Satisfaction that I now lay before you the Performance of those Commands, with which you were pleased to honour me, of collecting the Chirurgical Pieces which were singly published by Mr BECKETT in his Life time.

This Gentleman might be said to have been begotten in his Profession, as being the Son of Mr ISAAC BECKETT, Surgeon of Abington in Berkshire, where he was born in the Year 1684.

He received his Education under Mr PLEDWELL, then Master of the excellent Free Grammar-School belonging to that Town, served four Years of his Apprenticeship with his Father, and the three last with Mr Joseph Bateman, of St Thomas’s Hospital in Southwark.

Mr BECKETT died, SIR, at his Sister’s House in Abington, November the 25th 1738, in the 54th Year of his Age, and lies interred in St Hellen’s Church there.

Of this his Native Place, he drew up a Brief Account of it’s History and Antiquities.

See Mr ASHMOLE’s Antiquities of Berkshire, 3 Vols. 8vo. p. 111 of Vol. 1st.

A faithful Account of his WRITINGS is prefixed to this Volume; your Generous Patronage of which, he would himself have looked upon as the greatest Honour and Friendship that could be conferred on his Labours, and for which, I most humbly request your Acceptance of the Grateful Acknowledgments of,

SIR,

Your Obedient, And Obliged, Humble Servant,

June 29, 1740. E. C.

ACCOUNT

OF THE

WRITINGS

WILLIAM BECKETT,

Surgeon, and F. R. S.

VIZ,

In the Year 1709, He Published, I. Chirurgical Remarks, Occasioned by the Death of a CHILD, whose CASE was printed in that Year by Daniel Turner, Surgeon. To these Remarks Mr Beckett subjoined, An Account of a Wound of the Brain by a Bullet; with Reflections thereon. And at the End of this TRACT, Mr Beckett gave an Advertisement that He had almost ready for the Press, Annotations and Practical Observations on the Learned and Ingenious Monsieur GENDRON’s Enquiries into the Nature, Knowledge and Cure of CANCERS.

II. In the Year 1711, He published NEW DISCOVERIES relating to the Cure of CANCERS. Wherein the painful Methods of cutting them off, and consuming them by Caustics are rejected, and that of dissolving the Cancerous Substance is recommended; with various Instances of his Success in this Practice on Persons reputed incurable. Also a Solution of Four curious Problems concerning CANCERS, viz. I. Whether the Cancerous Juice is corrosive or not. II. Whether Cancers are contagious or not. III. Whether if the extirpating a Cancerous Breast happens to be successful, it ought to be looked upon as a Consequence of performing the Operation better than our Predecessors. IV. Whether a Salivation will Cure a Cancer.

This Treatise came to a Second Edition the following Year 1712: To which, besides some Corrections, Mr BECKETT added TWO other Problems with their Solutions, viz. V. Whether Cancers are curable by Caustics. VI. Whether Cancers are curable by Internal Medicines. In this Piece all that he promised relating to GENDRON is inserted. And to the present Third Edition He subjoined, by way of Postscript, a very valuable Receipt for the Cure of Cancers, which he informs us was communicated to him by his late eminent Brother Surgeon Mr Dobyns of Snow-Hill. He had it from Mr Pain a Gentleman of Northamptonshire, in whose Family it had been, in the highest Esteem, for above 200 Years. Mr Beckett likewise adds, that he transcribed it from the Original Manuscript.

At the End of the Second Edition of his Treatise on Cancers, Mr Beckett gave an Advertisement that “He was then preparing for the Press, Chirurgical Collections, which would consist of His own Observation of uncommon Cases, also, the most curious things relating to Surgery, taken from the Performances of the German Eruditi, in their Acta Lipsiæ, the Miscellanea Curiosa, Philosophical Transactions. Memoirs for the Curious, Voyages, Travels, Natural Histories of Counties, and many other things that would afford useful Observations. In this Collection was to be a great number of Figures of Cases, Instruments, Machines, &c. all curiously engraven on Copper Plates. This Undertaking was wholly designed for the Improvement of the Art of Surgery; and the Introduction to it was to give an Account of our famous English Writers in Physic and Surgery, for many hundred Years past.”

The great and deserved Practice which attended Mr Beckett’s New Method of curing Cancers, obliged him to postpone the Publication of his Chirurgical Collections, as above recited; and which, upon a mature Deliberation, he changed into a much more extensive and useful Design; and, by Mr Innys at the West-End of St Paul’s, and Mr Hooke in Fleet-street, Booksellers, He published Proposals for printing by Subscription in 2 Volumes 4to, An Account of the Lives, Characters, and Writings, both Manuscript and Printed, of the most eminent British Authors in Physic, Surgery, Anatomy, Pharmacy, Botany and Chemistry, from the Conquest to the Year 1721. To which was to be added, A large Collection of Records, principally taken from the Tower, containing Grants of particular Favours and Privileges to the most noted Physicians and Surgeons by the Kings of this Realm for many hundred Years; whereby, besides other curious Affairs not to be met with elsewhere, the Time in which they lived was to be ascertained, as to several of them, has hitherto remained absolutely undetermined. The whole faithfully collected and reduced to the most exact Order of Time.

This Work was proposed at the Price of one Guinea in Sheets.

Part 3

Between the Years 1717 and 1720, Mr Beckett published in the Philosophical Transactions, Three Letters concerning the History of the Antiquity of the Venereal Disease. I. To Dr Douglass. II. To Dr Wagstaffe. III. To Dr Halley. Proving That Disease to have been known and cured in England long before the Discovery of the West-Indies.

Of these Pieces Dr Astruc, a French Physician, full of the Vanity peculiar to his Countrymen, seems doubtful as to their Proof, because he had never seen the Manuscripts, nor rare printed Authorities, cited by Mr Beckett; and treating of Dr Turner’s Syphilis, speaks slightly of that Gentleman, because he is of the same Opinion with Mr Beckett.

From the Publication of a small Pamphlet consisting but of 24 Pages, 8vo, Intituled, “A Letter from a Gentleman at Rome, to his Friend in London, giving an Account of some very surprizing Cures in the King’s-Evil by the Touch, (of the Chevalier De St George) lately effected in the Neighbourhood of that City, 1721. Wherein is contained the compleatest History of this miraculous Power, formerly practiced by the Kings of England, ever yet made public; the Certainty of which is confirmed by the most eminent Writers of this Nation, both Catholics and Protestants, as, Malmsbury, Alured, Brompton, Polydore Virgil, Harpsfield, &c. and Drs Tooker, Heylin, Mr Collier, Mr Echard, &c. Translated out of the Italian.” And the following Motto prefixed by the Catholic Translator, viz.

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