Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: INTRODUCTION. The following tract is appended to a rare work which forms one of the earliest English books in surgery. It is a translation of Lanfranc's " Chi- rurgia Parva," by John Hall, surgeon. Of the translator little is known. There are no biographical notices of him beyond those which can be gathered from his writings, and from these we learn that he was a surgeon in practice at Maid- stone, in Kent, and a " member of the worshipful Company of Chirurgeons." He addresses his book to the members of that body, for protection, as well as to call upon them to unite with him in his endeavours to put down empiricism, and to advance the knowledge of surgeons in general. He appears to have been a man of strong mind, and of great zeal in his profession. A portrait, (wood cut), of which a facsimile is here given, taken when thirty-five years of age, shows that he was born in 1529 or 1530, and is prefixed to the work. Following his " Vera Effigies, '' is, in seven quatrains: ? THE BOOKES VERDICT. As some delighte moste to beholde, Eche newe devyse and guyse, So some in workes of fathers olde, Their studies exercise. Perusing with all diligence Bokes written long hefore: Wherin they learne experience, To heale both sicke and sore; Which I alowe in dede and werde, In those that understande; For otherwyse it is a sworde Put in a mad mans hande. Let idiotes and betles blynde, Therefore lay me aparte: Leste contrarie myne author-s mynde They rudly me perverte. For as the bee doth honie take From every goodly flowre, And spyders of the same doe make Venim that wyll devoure: So all that learned men and wyse To good purpose can use, The rude, that knowledge doe despise, Will ever more abuse. Wherefore all those that use me right...