Who performed lithotomy on Mr. Samuel Pepys? / by D'Arcy Power.

  • Power, D'Arcy, 1855-1941.
Date:
[1904]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Who performed lithotomy on Mr. Samuel Pepys? / by D'Arcy Power. 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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    of the Privy Chamber to the Queen. He hoped to be appointed surgeon to St. Thomas’s Hospital by the influence of the Duke of York when Tom Woodall was killed in a drunken quarrel in 1666, but I do not find that he was ever elected to the office and he must not be mistaken for Mr. William Pearce who was some time a colleague of Mr. Hollier at St. Thomas’s Hospital. James Pierce was master of the Barber-Surgeons’ Company in 1675 and was at that time surgeon to the King. Although Pierce was well known to Mr. Pepys he does not seem to have consulted him pro- fessionally on any occasion and I think we may say with certainty that Pierce was not his lithotomist. Thomas Hollier was a man of different calibre. He was appointed surgeon “for scald heads” at St. Thomas’s Hospital in 1638 and on Jan. 25tb, 1643-44 he was chosen surgeon to the hospital in place of Edward Molines, surgeon for the cutting of the stone to the hospital, who had left his place to join the King’s army at the beginning of the war. Molines was taken in arms against the Parliament at Arundel Castle and was in consequence deprived of his office as surgeon to St. Thomas’s Hospital on the day when Hollier was appointed. After the Restoration King Charles ordered the governors to reinstate Molines, but as the place had already been well filled by Hollier the governors were unwilling to displace him. There was a considerable correspondence and the difficulty was solved at last by the appointment of Molines as a fourth or additional surgeon, the stipend of the surgeons being reduced from £40 to £30 apiece. Mr. Hollier acted as a second warden of the Barber- Surgeons’ Company in 1665, when Mr. Serjeant Surgeon Wiseman was master, and was himself master of the Company in 1673. In 1669 the College of Physicians bought his house and grounds, extending from Warwick- lane to the City walls, for £1200 to build a new college in place of the college in Amen-corner which had been destroyed by the Great Fire. Hollier’s position as lithotomist gave him unusual opportunities to perfect his skill and he is said to have cut no less than 30 persons for stone in one year without a single death, a result of which he might be justly proud were he living amongst us now. Hollier seems to have been the trusted medical adviser of Mr. Pepys, for he bled him, gave him sound advice on many occasions, and when Mrs. Pepys was ill he was summoned to attend her. and though a surgeon he refrained from operating. Sir Frederick Bridge, in his recently published book “ Samuel Pepys, Lover of Musique” (p. 63), draws attention to certain entries in a volume of the Sloane MSS. at the British Museum.4 These entries consist of two prescriptions written by Dr. J. M., the second being countersigned by Dr. G. Jolly. The first prescription is headed “Before he was cut for the stone by Mr. Hollier” and is ordered “for Mr. Peapes.” It is a soothing * Sloane MSS., No. 1536, f. 63, margin.