Surgery in the early modern period does not mean operative surgery, as it does today, but a wider range of practice focused on the exterior of the body. Surgeons dealt with wounds, swellings, discharges, broken bones, and dislocations. They were also the healers most often involved in the treatment of venereal diseases, in part due the the external’ nature of the signs.
An experimental treatise of surgerie, in four parts. 1. The first part shewing the dangerous…