Epoch-making books in British surgery. IV, The whole course of chirurgerie compiled by Peter Lowe, Scotchman / by Sir D'Arcy Power, K.B.E., F.S.A.

  • D'Arcy Power
Date:
1928
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Epoch-making books in British surgery. IV, The whole course of chirurgerie compiled by Peter Lowe, Scotchman / by Sir D'Arcy Power, K.B.E., F.S.A. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF SURGERY Vol. XV. APRIL, 1928. No. 60. EPOCH-MAKING BOOKS IN BRITISH SURGERY. By Sir DARCY POWER, K.B.E., London. IV. THE WHOLE COURSE OF CHIRURGERIE COMPILED BY PETER LOWE, SCOTCHMAN. Peter Lowe describes himself as Doctor in the Faculty of Surgery in Paris and Surgeon in Ordinary to the most victorious and Christian King of France and Navarre. The first edition of the book was published in 1597, the second in 1612, both being printed by Thomas Purfoot during the lifetime of Lowe ; the third and fourth editions appeared posthumously. The first edition is a small book without illustrations ; the second, third, and fourth were greatly enlarged, and have woodcuts copied from Guillemeau and Ambroise Pare. The book differs from those of Gale and Clowes because it is written for the use of students who were going to be examined in surgery, whilst Lowe’s predecessors had written for those who were already in practice. It was compiled, as Master Peter Lowe says, in the second edition, for the use of his son John, “ because I am mindful to cause you to remain in Paris for your further instruction and passing of the degrees there accustomed in the said Art [of surgery] for the which I will in these three books following, as also in every general chapter set up as briefly as I can the form and method that the Doctors of Chirurgerie in Paris useth in their first examination—called the examination tentative—where the Provost of the said College and six other Masters that he will choose will examine you exactly upon the whole ground of Chirurgerie.” John, however, never entered medicine. Lowe had already published a small work on the Spanish Disease, and he intended to write a treatise on the sickness of women ; another on Infantment and a Poor Man’s Guide. None of these works can now be traced, so that it is probable they were never issued, perhaps never written. “ The whole Course of Surgery ” is partly a catechism, the interlocutors being John Cointret, Dean of the Faculty of Surgery in Paris, and Peter Lowe his scholar in the first edition, Peter Lowe VOL. XV.—NO. 60. 34