Chevalier
Chevalier may refer to:
Honours Belgium
* a rank in the Belgian Order of the Crown
* a rank in the Belgian Order of Leopold
* a rank in the Belgian Order of Leopold II
* a title in the Belgian nobility
France
* a rank in the French Legion d'h ...
John Taylor ( – 1770 or 1772) was an early British eye surgeon, self-promoter and medical
charlatan
A charlatan (also called a swindler or mountebank) is a person practicing quackery or a similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, power, fame, or other advantages through pretense or deception. Synonyms for ''charlatan'' include '' ...
of 18th-century Europe. He was noted by
Samuel Johnson, and associated with the surgical mistreatment of
George Frideric Handel,
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...
, and perhaps hundreds of others.
Career
Taylor was born in
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
, possibly in 1703.
He was the son of a surgeon named John Taylor, who died in 1709.
He studied in London under the pioneering British surgeon
William Cheselden at
St Thomas' Hospital,
and by 1727 had produced a book, ''An Account of the Mechanism of the Eye'', dedicated to Cheselden.
While his practice grew, operating on celebrities of the time such as
Edward Gibbon
Edward Gibbon (; 8 May 173716 January 1794) was an English historian, writer, and member of parliament. His most important work, '' The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788, is ...
, making the acquaintance of Viennese courtier and patron of composers
Gottfried van Swieten
Gottfried Freiherr van Swieten (29 October 1733 – 29 March 1803) was a Dutch-born Austrian diplomat, librarian, and government official who served the Holy Roman Empire during the 18th century. He was an enthusiastic amateur musician and is be ...
, and being appointed royal eye surgeon to
King George II, his flair for self-promotion grew with it, then beyond it. He dubbed himself "Chevalier", though the source of his title (equivalent to "knight" in English) is questionable, and his claims to be from an aristocratic family were false. He was not ennobled until 1755, by
Pope Benedict XIV
Pope Benedict XIV ( la, Benedictus XIV; it, Benedetto XIV; 31 March 1675 – 3 May 1758), born Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 17 August 1740 to his death in May 1758. Pope Be ...
.
Taylor toured Europe in a coach painted with images of eyes, performing the ancient technique of
couching cataracts and other techniques in something like an
eye surgery travelling medicine show, with claims, treatments, and payments coordinated for an easy exit out of town. In his expansive 1761 autobiography in two volumes, ''The Life and Extraordinary History of the Chevalier John Taylor'', Taylor styled himself "Ophthalmiater (sic) Pontifical, Imperial, Royal."
Taylor's career was destructive. His general approach included bloodletting, laxatives, and eyedrops of blood from slaughtered pigeons, pulverized sugar, or baked salt. Some time in late March 1750, during one of his European tours, Taylor operated on
Bach's cataracts twice in
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
and reportedly blinded him. Bach fell ill with a fever soon after his second operation and died less than four months later. There is some evidence that Taylor operated on
Handel in August 1758, in
Tunbridge Wells
Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in Kent, England, southeast of central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone geology is exemplified by the rock formation High Rocks. T ...
, after which Handel's health deteriorated until his death in April 1759. In both cases Taylor claimed complete success.
Prior to performing each surgical procedure, he would deliver a long, self-promoting speech in an unusual oratorial style. Dutch ophthalmologist R. Zegers mentions that "after his training, Taylor started practicing in Switzerland, where he blinded hundreds of patients, he once confessed". Writer
Samuel Johnson said of Taylor that his life showed "an instance of how far impudence may carry ignorance."
The time and place of Taylor's death are uncertain.
The musicologist
Charles Burney claimed that he died on the morning of Friday 16 November 1770 in Rome, also claiming to have "dined with him at my table d'hote a few days before his death". He was also said to have died in Paris. In June and July 1772, several newspapers in Germany and England reported that he had recently died at a convent in Prague, completely blind, after having suffered from
amaurosis Amaurosis (Greek meaning ''darkening'', ''dark'', or ''obscure'') is vision loss or weakness that occurs without an apparent lesion affecting the eye. It may result from either a medical condition or excess acceleration, as in flight. The term is t ...
;
this version was also supported by Taylor's grandson
John Taylor.
See also
*
William Read
*
Joshua Ward
Joshua Ward (1685–1761) was an English doctor, most remembered for the invention of Friar's Balsam. He sat briefly in the House of Commons from 1715 to 1717.
Life
Ward was born in Yorkshire. He was the brother of John Ward who was MP for seve ...
References
Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, John
Year of birth uncertain
1770s deaths
British ophthalmologists
British surgeons
People from Norwich
Health fraud
Pseudoscience