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Back to article: WILLIAM CHESELDEN (1688-1752)

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CHESELDEN, WILLIAM (1688-1752), English surgeon, was born at Somerby, Leicestershire, on the 19th of October 1688. He studied anatomy in London under William Cowper (1666-1709), and in 1713 published his Anatomy of the Human Body, which achieved great popularity and went through thirteen editions. In 1718 he was appointed an assistant surgeon at St Thomas's hospital (London), becoming full surgeon in the following year, and he was also chosen one of the surgeons to St George's hospital on its foundation in 1733. He retired from St Thomas's in 1738, and died at Bath on the loth of April 1752. Cheselden is famous for his " lateral operation for the stone," which he first performed in 1727. He also effected a great advance in ophthalmic surgery by his operation of iridectomy, described in 1728, for the treatment of certain forms of blindness by the production of an " artificial pupil." He at-tended Sir Isaac Newton in his last illness, and was an intimate friend of Alexander Pope and of Sir Hans Sloane.