An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2022 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

15961 entries, 13944 authors and 1935 subjects. Updated: March 22, 2024

CLOWES, William

2 entries
  • 2373

A short and profitable treatise touching the cure of the morbus gallicus by unctions.

London: J. Daye, 1579.

William Clowes, the greatest of the Elizabethan surgeons, published the first original English treatise on syphilis. It was his first work; it demonstrates the prevalence of the disease at that time (Clowes says that of every 20 persons admitted to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, 15 were found to be suffering from syphilis). Facsimile reprint, New York, Da Capo Press, 1972.



Subjects: INFECTIOUS DISEASE › SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES › Syphilis
  • 2141

A prooved practise for all young chirurgians, concerning burnings with gunpowder, and woundes made with gunshot.

London: T. Orwyn for T. Cadman, 1588.

An interesting picture of Elizabethan surgery is given by William Clowes in this book on gunshot wounds. Clowes, the best surgical writer in Elizabethan times, was surgeon to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. In amputation he covered the stump with integument – an earlier form of the flap method. The Selected Writings of William Clowes were edited by F. N. L. Poynter, London, 1949.