Dr. John Woodall

John Woodall (1570–1643) was an English military surgeon, Paracelsian chemist, businessman, linguist and diplomat. He made a fortune through the stocking of medical chests for the East India Company and later the armed forces of England. He is remembered for his authorship of The Surgeon's Mate which was the standard text to advise ships surgeons on medical treatments while at sea and contains an advanced view on the treatment of scurvy.

Woodall was the son of Richard Woodall of Warwick, and was apprenticed around the age of 16 or 17 to a London barber surgeon. He did not finish his apprenticeship but gained experience from the age of nineteen in 1589 as a surgeon with Lord Willoughby's regiment on its expedition to support the Protestant Henry IV of France and King of Navarre in his campaign against the Catholic League of Normandy. He returned in 1590.

Woodall is known to have then lived and worked as a surgeon in Polonia and Stade, a Hanseatic port near Hamburg, Whilst there he was occasionally employed as a German interpreter by visiting English ambassadors.

In 1599 he was admitted to the Barber-Surgeons Company of London as a freeman but continued to live mainly on the continent in Holland, until 1603 when he took up residence in Wood Street, London. He was able to offer treatment to victims of the plague epidemic. At unspecified times in his life he contracted bubonic plague and survived, writing of this, "...for I had it twice, namely at two severall Plague times in my Groyne."

In 1604 James I of England sent an embassy, led by Sir Thomas Smith, Governor of the East India Company, to Poland and possibly to Russia. Woodall was included for his knowledge of the region and command of the languages. The association with Smith was a fruitful one for Woodall, for in 1612 Sir Thomas appointed Woodall to serve as Surgeon General to the East India Company. His duties were described as follows:

"The Said Chiurgion and the Deputy shall have a place of lodging in the Yard, where one of them shall give Attendance every working day from morning until night, to cure any person or persons who may be hurt in the Service of this Company and the like in all their Ships, riding at Anchor at Deptford and Blackwell, and at Erith, where he shall also keepe a Deputy with his chest furnished, to remaine there continually until all the said ships have sayled and appointing fit and able Surgeons and Surgeon's Mates for their ships and services, as also the fitting and furnishing of their Chests with medicines and other appurtenances thereto."

Woodall's career then progressed rapidly with election as a surgeon at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1616 where he was a colleague of Sir William Harvey. He was promoted to examiner in the Barber-Surgeons Company in 1626, to warden in 1627 and then master in 1633.

He suffered a setback, however, in 1625 when he served a writ on Sir Thomas Merry, a servant of the King who owed Woodall money. For his effrontery to royal privilege, the Lord Steward had Woodall imprisoned. He was briefly released to supervise surgeon's chests for the next fleet at the request of the East India Company, but was then jailed once more. He was only freed when he issued a contrite apology.

His friend and colleague Patrick Saunders made a deposition on his behalf in John Woodall vs. Sir Thomas Merry involving cargo of the Lions Claw alias Merchant Bonaventure and Hopewell.

The following year of 1626 the Privy Council decided to pay the Barber-Surgeons Company fixed allowances to furnish medical chests for both the army and navy, and Woodall was appointed to supervise this scheme in addition to his long-standing similar commitment to the East India Company. He was the first Surgeon General of the East India Company.

He was eventually dismissed by the East India Company in 1635 for financial reasons, but retained a monopoly on supplying the Company's medical chests until he died in 1643, aged 73.

Sources:

• from Wikipedia
• The Recipes Project

A recent article (2004) by the AP mentions Barber Surgeon John Woodall of London (1569-1643).

Records from the early years of the settlement show that at least four surgeons practiced at disease-plagued Jamestown between 1607 and 1610. Evidence also shows that London physician John Woodall sent a fully equipped surgeon's chest to the settlement in 1608. The excavations have unearthed two of the instruments from the kit.

• From: Rough Medicine: Surgeons at Sea in the Age of Sail
  • Born in Warwick, the son of Richard and Mary Woodall, was apprenticed to a barber-surgeon at the age of sixteen. Within three years he was serving in Europe as a military surgeon at the start of a brilliant military career that included the publication of the first text in any language written specifically for surgeons at sea.
  • The first surgeon-general of the East India Company.
• Dr. John Woodall was a friend of Sir Walter Raleigh's. He was also an interpreter for Queen Elizabeth. During the plague he searched all over Europe to find a cure.
• Besides being a very prominate man is Elizabethian England, an inovator in the field of medicine, a diplomat who spoke 5 languages, and one of 4 doctors who stayed in London during the plague to treat the sick and dieing; Mr. John Woodall-Barber-Surgeon of London was also an astute business man who was very involved as a Charter Member of the Virginia Company.
• The Woodall's orginated from Bedfordshire, England. Bedfordshire is a county next to London.
• The Woodall's were early settlers of Virginia and had money. They also has ties to the Crown.
• Dr. John was a graduate of Cambridge College and a Rector in Iden Essex, England. http://www.chronology.ndo.co.uk/1500-1699.htm
• 1617 Society of Apothecaries formed by the separation of apothecaries from grocers.
• The apothecaries were granted the exclusive privilege of selling drugs and of compounding medicines.
• See 1632. The Surgeons Mate” by John Woodall (1556-1643, surgeon at St Bartholomew’s Hospital) published. One of the earliest books on naval medicine; advocated limes and lemons as a preventive measure against scurvy (see 1753).
• John Woodall From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJohn Woodall (1570 – 1643) was an English military surgeon, Paracelsian chemist, businessman, linguist and diplomat. He made a fortune through the stocking of medical chests for the East India Company and later the armed forces of England. He is remembered for his authorship of The Surgeon's Mate which was the standard text to advise ships surgeons on medical treatments while at sea and contains an advanced view on the treatment of scurvy.

Woodall was the son of Richard Woodall of Warwick, and was apprenticed around the age of 16 or 17 to a London barber surgeon. He did not finish his apprenticeship but gained experience from the age of nineteen in 1589 as a surgeon with Lord Willoughby's regiment on its expedition to support the Protestant Henry IV of France and King of Navarre in his campaign against the Catholic League of Normandy. He returned in 1590.

Woodall is know to have then lived and worked as a surgeon in Polonia and Stade, a Hanseatic port near Hamburg, Whilst there he was occasionally employed as a German interpreter by visiting English ambassadors.

In 1599 he was admitted to the Barber-Surgeons Company of London as a freeman but continued to live mainly on the continent in Holland, until 1603 when he took up residence in Wood Street, London. He was able to offer treatment to victims of the plague epidemic. At unspecified times in his life he contracted bubonic plague and survived, writing of this, "...for I had it twice, namely at two severall Plague times in my Groyne."

In 1604 James I of England sent an embassy, led by Sir Thomas Smith, Governor of the East India Company, to Poland and possibly to Russia. Woodall was included for his knowledge of the region and command of the languages. The association with Smith was a fruitful one for Woodall, for in 1612 Sir Thomas appointed Woodall to serve as Surgeon General to the East India Company. His duties were described as follows: "The Said Chiurgion and the Deputy shall have a place of lodging in the Yard, where one of them shall give Attendance every working day from morning until night, to cure any person or persons who may be hurt in the Service of this Company and the like in all their Ships, riding at Anchor at Deptford and Blackwell, and at Erith, where he shall also keepe a Deputy with his chest furnished, to remaine there continually until all the said ships have sayled and appointing fit and able Surgeons and Surgeon's Mates for their ships and services, as also the fitting and furnishing of their Chests with medicines and other appurtenances thereto." Woodall's career then progressed rapidly with election as a surgeon at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1616 where he was a colleague of Sir William Harvey. He was promoted to examiner in the Barber-Surgeons Company in 1626, to warden in 1627 and then master in 1633.

He suffered a setback, however, in 1625 when he served a writ on Sir Thomas Merry, a servant of the King who owed Woodall money. For his effrontery to royal privilege, the Lord Steward had Woodall imprisoned. He was briefly released to supervise surgeon's chests for the next fleet at the request of the East India Company, but was then jailed once more. He was only freed when he issued a contrite apology.

The following year of 1626 the Privy Council decided to pay the Barber-Surgeons Company fixed allowances to furnish medical chests for both the army and navy, and Woodall was appointed to supervise this scheme in addition to his long-standing similar commitment to the East India Company.

He was eventually dismissed by the East India Company in 1635 for financial reasons, but retained a monopoly on supplying the Company's medical chests until he died in 1643, aged 73.

• The Surgeon's Mate
  • The first edition of The Surgeon's Mate was published in 1617. Later editions contained treatise on "for the better curing of Wounds made by Gunshot""of that most fearefull and contagious Disease called the Plague"and "A Treatise of Gangrena... chiefly for the Amputation or Dismembering of any Member of the mortified part."
  • Pages 160-176 to are devoted to "the scurvy called in Latine Scorbutum."
  • We have in our owne country here many excellent remedies generally knowne, as namely, Scurvy-grasse, Horse-Reddish roots, Nasturtia Aquatica, Wormwood, Sorrell, and many other good meanes... to the cure of those which live at home...they also helpe some Sea-men returned from farre who by the only natural disposition of the fresh aire and amendment of diet, nature herselfe in effect doth the Cure without other helps." At sea, he states that experience shows that "the Lemmons, Limes, Tamarinds, Oranges, and other choice of good helps in the Indies... do farre exceed any that can be carried tither from England. Bibliography •Bishop, WJ. The Early History of Surgery. London: Oldbourne Book Co. Ltd., 1962 •Dobson, Jessie and Walker, R. Milnes. Barbers and Barber-Surgeons. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1979. •Druett, Joan. Rough Medicine: Surgeons at Sea in the Age of Sail. New York: Routledge, 2000. •Graham, Harvey. The Story of Surgery. Garden City, New York: Halcyon House, 1943. •Proceedings of the 12th Annual History of Medicine Days, WA Whitelaw - March 2003

References •Biography at rootsweb •Contribution to medicine at the Vanderbilt Medical Center, Accessed March 2007 •John Woodall: From Barber-Surgeon To Surgeon General(PDF) ,By Glen Hazlewood University of Calgary, Preceptor: Dr. P. Cruse - The Proceedings of the 12th Annual History Of Medicine Days , Faculty Of Medicine The University Of Calgary March 21st and 22nd, 2003, pages 117 to 137. Accessed March 2007 •1617 - Surgeon's tools Illustration from The Surgion's Mate, The British Library. Accessed March 2007 1.^ National Portrait Gallery D9056, John Woodall by George Glover, after Unknown artist, line engraving, published 1639 . Archive Collection