HAVING received several letters containing the most illiberal abuse, in consequence of the publication of the preced­ing pages, some of which I have reason to sup­pose were written by Counsellor Brand's^* Surgeon of Character; I think it necessary to declare, that I never intended, nor, indeed, could I form an idea, that the Treatise in question should give the smallest offence to any Gentle­man of the Faculty. My sole object was—the relief of my fellow-creatures, and the instruc­tion of the ignorant in that which it is neces­sary they should know.—Besides improv­ing their practice, I have a right to the thanks of the Faculty, for pointing out the most ef­ficacious cure of a Malady, from which they are by no means exempt—and which the most eminent of them have had no little trouble to remove.—And I sincerely wish I could not say with truth, that numbers have, within these few years, lost their lives, after having paid very considerable sums for pretended assis­tance, and ineffectual advice. It is interest, [Page 30]then, alone that prevents these cavillers from doing justice to my performances, and which prompts them to cheat the disordered of as­sistance.

I AM acquainted with Surgeons who have been many years in practice, and who have as­sured me they never had an opportunity of reducing a Rupture, or of applying a Truss.—A midwife, too, who has been up­wards of twenty years in practice, lately de­clared to me, that, to her knowledge, she ne­ver had delivered a woman that had a Rup­ture either in the Groin or Navel.—Yet have I applied Bandages on a variety of both.—

NOTWITHSTANDING the true method of ap­plying Trusses, or reducing Ruptures, is a mat­ter of the utmost importance in the treatment of that malady, and in the highest degree con­ducive to the ease of the Patient, I am bold to say, that in all the treatises I have perused, both antient and modern (and they are not a few), I never met with any thing like a clear instruc­tion to that purpose.—Something curious, tho' by no means advantageous, may be col­lected from a book lately published.—(The Author, I think, dignifies his name with, [Page 31] ‘"Master of Arts and Surgery, Member of the Royal Academy of Surgery at Paris, Demonstrator in the School of St. Come, Surgeon for Ruptures of the Hospitals of Hotel Dieu, the Invalids and Incurables, of the City of Paris, and of all the military Hospitals in France.")’ A process is there advised for making an ointment of a solution of Gold Pearls, to be used for assisting the reduction of strangulated Ruptures.—When this ingenious and most expensive pre­paration is compleated, it will probably be as efficacious as the same quantity of clay, in the same manner applied.

I HOPED in the treatises above hinted at, to have found something that would, at least, have been capable of improvement in the true method of applying Trusses, and the reducing Ruptures:—On the contrary, they contain merely long and unsatisfactory details of the manner in which the antient Surgeons com­monly burnt the Ruptures of their Patients, and destroyed the flesh of those parts to the Bone, with a view of avoiding the more ne­cessary application of Trusses.—This is one proof, among many, that Surgeons never en­couraged Trusses, altho' it is universally ac­knowledged [Page 32]that it is impossible a cure can be perfectly obtained without such an assistant.—The pain attending the wearing of some Trusses, it must be acknowledged, has pre­vented many persons from adhering to the most salutary method of cure; but such neg­lect is often attended with the most dreadful consequences; it being no uncommon thing to meet persons in the street, whose Guts partly falling into their breeches, exhibit a deplorable and pitiable spectacle.

AND here it may not be improper to inform the Reader of the encouragement I received from the Faculty on my arrival in London, which was in June, 1764. Mr. Ranby being the only gentleman of the profession I had the honour of knowing, I waited upon him; and, by his desire, afterwards attended the Gentlemen of St. George's Hospital. With the countenance of such a Gentleman as Mr. Ranby, whose name and letter to me at Aberdeen I had the liberty to use, I could not but form the most pleasing hopes of convin­cing some of the first Surgeons in England of the merit and utility of my Trusses.—But I was disappointed: I found, tho' they were men of learning, they were not men of can­dor. [Page 33]—Mr. Bromfield said, ‘"he believed they might do."’ Mr. Gataker said, ‘"he could see nothing more in my Trusses than in any other."’ However, while I was one day at­tending a person, then under the care of Mr. Hawkins, he informed me that he had long been an Out-patient of that Hospital, and had Trusses from every Truss-maker in Town, but that none of them would keep his Rup­ture up; and that since he had been under Mr. Hawkins's care, he had procured him a Truss from a person in Bartholomew Close, which would by no means keep up his Rupture, tho' he had been to the maker twenty times to have it altered, who told him his Rupture would never be well 'till he had it cut. I looked upon this as an opportunity, offered me by Providence, of at once doing a service to a fel­low-creature, and bringing conviction of the use of my Elastic Trusses to those who had ignorantly or interestedly denied their merits. I brought the youth to my lodgings, and there applied a Truss on him; my honest endea­vours had the desired effect; and in about three months, he obtained a compleat cure.

LEST any of my Readers should doubt the truth of this relation, I desire to inform [Page 34]them that the name of the above-mentioned youth is John Pellerst, whose uncle, of the same name, lives in Downe-street, near Hyde-Park Corner; and I believe that something relative to this affair will be found in the books of St. George's Hospital, from the beginning of April 1764, to the end of August in the same year.—To this case I have only to add, that notwithstanding this ample proof of the merits of my Truss, I cannot charge Mr. Hawkins with recommending a single Patient to me, tho' he has often confessed my Trusses were more efficacious than those of any other person he had knowledge of.

IN Mr. Pott's Treatise on Ruptures, second Edition, Sec. 1. Page 29, that gentleman says, ‘"The cure of a Rupture is either perfect (called also radical) or imperfect, which is called palliative. This distinction, which, he says, is just and true, and founded both on reason and experience, has frequently been misun­derstood by the generality of mankind, and has therefore been the cause of much undeserving censure on the practitioners of Surgery."’ He adds, ‘"the truth is, that tho' the events are extremely different, yet the chirurgical means which are made use [Page 35]of in either case are exactly the same, viz. the reduction of the protruded parts, and re­tention of them when so reduced by proper Bandages."’—I wish Mr. Pott had given the address of his proper Bandage-maker, as Dr. Smellie did of his proper Midwifery In­strument-maker. I could never find those Bandages at the Shoemaker's, nor at the RUP­TURE-CURER'S, who has his name distinguished in the Court and City Register for 1771.—Convinced at least of their politeness in thus dignifying a man who has little pretension to public favour, I had no doubt but that the com­pilers, or compilers directors had compli­mented me with a similar appellation;—but I was again mistaken: I found (in Page 142) my desert would procure me barely the title of plain Truss-maker.—I wish some of those persons whom this RUPTURE-CURER has assisted, would persuade me out of a notion that it is death which generally performs the cure for this worthy gentleman. I am assured that those Trusses said to be of his making are too painful even for a horse to wear. He prides himself, I am told, on employing the same persons who did business for my Predecessor.—As a proof of the absurdity of building on another's supposed reputation, when I was appointed [Page 36]Truss-maker to Greenwich Hospital, I could not find one in twenty of the ruptured men in that place, who could wear the Trusses made by my predocessor; and those who did wear them were so miserably fretted and galled on their Hips and Loins, that they were obliged to attend the Surgeon every morning to have their Wounds dressed: So that by my ap­pointment, I had the pleasure not only of re­lieving the diseased men from the misery they suffered by the iron Trusses before made use of, but prevented the surgeons from being troubled with the like complaints, and saved the expences of the house.

BEING, about twenty-eight years since, af­flicted with a Rupture, I consented to become a Patient to Messrs. Woodward and Hunt; and from a strict attention to their method, I am enabled to give the Reader some idea of it. The first object then with them was, to ex­amine the Patient—with respect to his circum­stances. If he would part freely with his mo­ney, they first applied a linen Bandage; and shortly after informed him, that was not suffi­cient of itself to perform the cure, and that they must call in the assistance of proper Me­dicines, [Page 37]with which they would furnish him at one Guinea per Month.—And in this way did they cajole me out of Fourteen Guineas; and my Rupture was greatly worse at the year's end than when first I became their Patient.

I AM here induced to relate a Story which cannot be contradicted, and which will serve sufficiently to expose the fallacy of trifling and vain pretenders. A gentleman of 70 years of age, who has been afflicted many years with a Rupture, and who has worn a Truss of my making for upwards of these five years, which rendered his Rupture, tho' by no means cura­ble, of little trouble to him, was very lately persuaded to apply to Mr. L. a Surgeon, for a complete cure. He accordingly waited on that gentleman, to know if he would take his case in hand, and what the expence would be. Mr. L. told him he had no doubt of effecting a cure, even if he was eighty years old; and as he was only a Tradesman, he believed he could do it for about 30 Guineas; but that the Patient must wait on him every morning. This, the gentleman informed him, was a thing he could not do; and the Surgeon, therefore, consented to call upon him.—Next [Page 38]morning Mr. L. dressed in a suit of black vel­vet, drove in his chariot to his Patient's. The tradseman, reflecting that this appearance of grandeur was not kept up at a small expence, determined to make a sure bargain, and ac­cordingly told the Surgeon,—‘"Sir, before we proceed to business, let me know exactly what the expence of this cure will be; and if no cure—no pay."’—At this the Surgeon "started like a guilty thing," and turning on his heel, whipp'd into his chariot, and drove home,—no doubt sufficiently mortified at the disappointment.—I have only to remark, that if every afflicted person would endeavour to make as certain a bargain as my Patient in­tended to do with the above-mentioned im­pudent assertor, the velvet suits of such pet­tifoggers in genius would soon be rusty, and their Chariots without a wheel.

I AM acquainted with many persons of both sexes who have been Patients to Mr. L. and they all agree that the following is his method of operation: First, he applies a Bandage, as Woodward and Hunt used to do. The Pati­ent must then attend on him once a day for so many times as he shall appoint, and at these times he applies a brush dipt in some­thing [Page 39]which he calls an Astringent. When he is tired of brushing, he pronounces a com­plete cure; which should the Patient presume to doubt, he is capable of behaving in the most insolent manner, which he justifies by the affront offered to his knowledge:—and should their spirit on the occasion equal his impu­dence (which is barely possible), he will even go so far as to threaten a prosecution for defa­mation. To corroborate this fact, it is well known that, about seven years ago, this same Mr. L. obtained a verdict of eighty pounds from a Surgeon of eminence, and another of an hundred pounds from a Gentleman in the same profession equally respectable, for a pre­tended defamation; and has since been at the point of being pilloried for his mal-practices on his Ruptured Patients.

I MUST here beg leave to introduce a passage from Mr. Pott's Treatise on Ruptures, p. 169. ‘"The histories of Prior, Cabriere, Bowles, Sir Thomas Renton, Dr. Littlejohn, &c. &c. to be found in Dionis, Houston, and other writers, will furnish to the Reader an idea of the practice and performances of some who have stood at the head of those bold promisers."’—‘"This is a subject in which [Page 40] mankind are much interested, and on which a good deal might be said; but as an ho­nest endeavour to save the afflicted from the hands of those who have no character to lose, and whose only point is money, might from one of the profession be misconstrued into malevolence and craft, I will not enter into it; but shall conclude by wishing, that they who have capacity to judge of these matters (which are as much the object of common­sense as any other kind of knowledge) would not suffer themselves to be deluded by the impudent assertions of any Charlatan whatever; but determine in this, as they do in many other things, that is, by the event."’—There is a sentence in sacred writ which naturally strikes me on the present occasion—‘"Out of thy own mouth will I con­demn thee."’—Let the Reader join the above quotations, and think for himself.—I snall only say, that I sincerely wish Counsel­lor Brand's Surgeon of character would reflect on the very excellent opinion of Mr. Pott, be­fore he receives his fee merely for approving what the Shoemaker has done, or preparing the way for what he is to do.

WITH respect to myself, without a vain pre­tence to a thorough knowledge of Surgery, it is my boast that a studious application, long experience, and, above all, a strict adherence to the principles of^* Humanity, have fixed me in the midst of a most extensive practice. That there are persons who bear me illw-ill, I have no doubt; but I have the consolation, that, in this case, those who are my enemies are the enemies of Society.—I despise the reflections thrown out against me on account of my former professions: Such reflections are at once a proof of ill manners and ill principles. The good and the sensible will acknowledge, that it is as possible for a soldier to attain a knowledge of the true method of reducing [Page 42]Ruptures and applying Trusses, as it was for Frere Jacques to discover the proper manner of cutting for the stone; for a friar to instruct the world in the use of Gun-powder; or a soldier to invent the important and useful art of Printing. From a conviction that the Pupils in the different Hospitals in town seldom had an opportunity of seeing a Rupture, and from a desire to render a knowledge of its proper treatment more general; I very lately gave them a public invitation to see me perform the operation of reducing Ruptures, and the retention of them when so reduced by apply­ing Trusses, which is the only remedy, at all ages, and in all states, of reducible Ruptures. At the same time, I provided a number of cases, some of which were acknowledged by Mr. Hunter to be the most singular he re­membered to have met with.—However, this good disposition in me could not escape censure;—an undistinguishing haughtiness con­strued it an affront—and I was informed, that if I persisted in that practice, it would greatly offend the Faculty. To exculpate myself from a design to give offence, I shall only refer to the feelings of every candid Reader, and say, [Page 43]that I meant a service to the world. In conclu­sion, I shall subjoin a few Cases, and for the present take my leave,—wishing those who condemn from ignorance, more know­ledge;—those who asperse from malevolence, more good-nature.