Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Norford, William
NORFORD, WILLIAM (1715–1793), medical writer, was born in 1715, and was apprenticed to John Amyas, a surgeon in Norwich ‘of the first character and in full business’ (Letter to Sharpin). He began practice at Halesworth in Suffolk as a surgeon and man-midwife. In 1753 he published in London ‘An Essay on the General Method of treating Cancerous Tumours,’ 8vo, dedicated to John Freke [q. v.], senior surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He had been encouraged to write by some remarks of Freke, and by the example of Dale Ingram [q. v.], also a country practitioner. He endeavours to establish rules for the treatment of cancer, which had, he believed, been successful in several cases. Some of his supposed cures were, however, followed by recurrence and death; and in others of his cases it is clear that abscesses or inflamed glands, but not cancers, were present. He discusses the views of Ledran, Van Swieten, and Wiseman, and states his own cases with fairness. He believed in a sulphur electuary and an ointment of his own. He married the daughter of a surgeon, and after some years moved to Bury St. Edmunds. He became an extra-licentiate of the College of Physicians on 26 Nov. 1761, and began practice as a physician. He had a quarrel with a Dr. Sharpin of East Dereham over a case of intestinal obstruction, and defended his own conduct in a sixpenny pamphlet entitled ‘A Letter to Dr. Sharpin in Answer to his Appeal to the Public concerning his Medical Treatment of Mr. John Ralling, apothecary, of Bury St. Edmund's in Suffolk.’ On the strength of his licence he styles himself Doctor. The letter is dated ‘Bury, Oct. 9, 1764,’ and the case, which is fully described, has considerable medical interest. In 1780 he published at Bury St. Edmunds ‘Concisæ et Practicæ Observationes de Intermittentibus Febribus curandis,’ 4to. He died in 1793. His portrait was painted by George Ralph, and engraved in 1788 by J. Singleton.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 235; Works.]