John Read ( fl. 1587-1588) was an English surgeon and medical writer.

Life

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...

in 1587, Read was instrumental in having a Flemish

quack Quack, The Quack or Quacks may refer to: People * Quack Davis, American baseball player * Hendrick Peter Godfried Quack (1834–1917), Dutch economist and historian * Joachim Friedrich Quack (born 1966), German Egyptologist * Johannes Quack (b ...

practitioner prosecuted. He came to London about that time, and in 1588 was licensed to practise there as a surgeon.

Works

He belonged to the group of Elizabethan surgeons who set themselves to improve the position of English surgery. They wrote in English, and sought to demarcate surgeons from quacks. Others of a like mind were John Banester, William Clowes,

Thomas Gale Thomas Gale (1635/1636?7 or 8 April 1702) was an English classical scholar, antiquarian and cleric. Life Gale was born at Scruton, Yorkshire. He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow. ...

, and John Halle. In 1588 Read published a composite work, based on a translation from a surgical text of Franciscus Arceus ( Francisco Arceo, 1494–1575).''A most Excellent and Compendious Method of curing Woundes in the Head and in other Partes of the Body with other Precepts of the same Arte, practised and written by that famous man Franciscus Arceus … whereunto is added the exact Cure of the Caruncle … with a Treatise of the Fistulæ in the Fundament and other places of the Body; translated out of Johannes Ardern; and also the Description of the Emplaister called Dia Chalciteos, with his Use and Vertues. … Lond., by Th. East''. There are other elements. Prefixed to the translation is ''A Complaint of the Abuses of the Noble Art of Chirurgerie'', written in verse by Read. There is a work on

fistula A fistula (plural: fistulas or fistulae ; from Latin ''fistula'', "tube, pipe") in anatomy is an abnormal connection between two hollow spaces (technically, two epithelialized surfaces), such as blood vessels, intestines, or other hollow or ...

by John Arderne, and a version of the

Hippocratic oath The Hippocratic Oath is an oath of ethics historically taken by physicians. It is one of the most widely known of Greek medical texts. In its original form, it requires a new physician to swear, by a number of healing gods, to uphold specific e ...

. There are additions of Read's own. Read dedicated his book to Banester, Clowes, and William Pickering. The work contained aspirations, that "the Barbers craft ought to be a distinct mistery from chirurgery", and "chirurgians ought to be seene in physicke", that in the British context were delayed until 1745, and 1868, respectively.

Family

Read married, on 24 June 1588, John Banester's daughter Cicily.

Notes

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Read, John 16th-century English medical doctors English surgeons English medical writers English translators English male non-fiction writers