ISS: Information Services and Systems

Case 2: Cheselden and Pope

Exhibition curator: Brandon High

Frontispiece of: William Cheselden . Osteographia, or the anatomy of the human bones. London: [printed by William Bowyer?], 1733. St. Thomas's Historical Collection 7g1

William Cheselden . Osteographia, or the anatomy of the human bones. London: [printed by William Bowyer?], 1733.

St. Thomas's Historical Collection 7g1

This is the first edition of a work which, at the time of its writing, was the most comprehensive anatomy of the human and animal bone structure that had been published. The text is deliberately brief; as the bones were shown in their life size, "and again reduced to lesser scales, in order to shew them united to one another", illustrations would perform the task of explanation. The engravers, Gerard van der Gucht and Mr. Shinevoet, employed a camera obscura to execute many of the images, which is depicted in the title page vignette. Only three hundred copies of this atlas were printed, Cheselden's bid for subscribers (a popular method of financing publication at that time, which was used by many literary figures, his friend Alexander Pope among them) having failed. Cheselden's pupil, Samuel Sharp, assisted him in the preparation of this work, and a portrait of Sharp is included in the frontispiece. Alexander Pope suffered from tuberculosis of the bone, and may have had a personal interest in this work.

The front pastedown bears the inscription of John William Horsley (1845-1921), clergyman, philanthropist, and botanist. He was mayor of Southwark in 1910 and one of the canons of Southwark cathedral.

Part of a letter from Pope to Swift from:. The works of Alexander Pope, Esq. volume the sixth. Edinburgh: printed by James Donaldson, 1789 [Rare Books Collection PR3620.A1 D89]

Alexander Pope. The works of Alexander Pope, Esq. volume the sixth. Edinburgh: printed by James Donaldson, 1789

Rare Books Collection PR3620.A1 D89

The poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744) suffered from ill-health throughout his life - or his "long disease" - as he called it in An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, the most important ailment being tuberculosis of the bone, which progressively impeded his mobility. Although he enjoyed a friendship with Cheselden over many years, Pope first mentions him in connection with his esteem for Cheselden's abilities as a scholar of Shakespeare in letters to his friend Jonathan Richardson in February and March 1722. When Richardson is arranging a "Shakespeare evening", Pope writes: "Let friend Cheselden be of the party." In the letter to Jonathan Swift of March 1736 in the volume displayed here, Pope writes:

I wondered a little at your quaere, who Cheselden was? It shews that the truest merit does not travel so far any way as on the wings of poetry ; for he is the most noted, and the most deserving, man in the whole profession of Chirurgery ; and has saved the lives of thousands by his manner of cutting for the stone.

In his Imitations of Horace, Pope had already paid homage to his skill as an ophthalmologist:

I'll do what MEAD and CHESELDEN advise
To keep those limbs and to preserve those eyes.

Although Pope was renowned as a satirist, the medical profession seems to have escaped being an object of his scorn. In this, he differed from his friend Jonathan Swift, who in his Tale of a Tub (1704) satirised medicine's current obsession with adopting "Newtonian" theories of physiology.

Title page and frontispiece of: Alexander Pope. The Dunciad. London: printed for Lawton Gilliver, 1729. [Rare Books Collection PR3625.D9 D29 ]

Rare Books Collection PR3625.D9 D29

This is the third edition of The Dunciad, a work to which Pope did not admit authorship until 1735. The first edition was published in 1728, without the index and voluminous appendices that are two of the poem's many curious features. The second was printed for private distribution in March 1729. This edition (the third) was published in November 1729. Numerous pirated editions appeared in the same year: one of the targets of Pope's scorn is booksellers such as Edmund Curll, who specialised in illicit publishing.

With the sole exception of Philemon Holland, a seventeenth century physician who gave up practising in order to devote himself to classical translation, the medical profession escapes Pope's lash. Could the ass carrying the books of Pope's literary opponents in the frontispiece illustration be a reference to his spinal disfigurement?

William Cheselden. The anatomy of the human body. London: printed for W. Johnston, Hawes, Clarke and Collins, 1773. [Guy's Hospital Historical Collection]

William Cheselden. The anatomy of the human body. London: printed for W. Johnston, Hawes, Clarke and Collins, 1773. Guy's Hospital Historical Collection

William Cheselden (1688-1752) was one of the first British surgeons to attain social eminence. His friendships with Alexander Pope and with the poet, essayist and lexicographer Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) testified to their regard for his culture and erudition. Such qualities were not usually associated with surgeons, as they did not possess university degrees, which were the monopoly of physicians.

His medical research and professional activity significantly enhanced the status of surgeons, and made possible the advances in anatomy which were achieved in later years by William Hunter and Sir Astley Paston Cooper.

The anatomy of the human body was first published in 1713. It established itself quickly as the leading textbook for anatomical students, which position it held for over a hundred years. It filled a gap in the market, as other anatomical works were not so convenient to handle. The classical allusion of the frontispiece illustration and the wide margins indicate that this was intended to be an expensive book, which would demonstrate the growing importance attached to surgery as a profession by the later eighteenth century.