Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nourse, Edward
NOURSE, EDWARD (1701–1761), surgeon, son of Edward Nourse, surgeon, of Oxford, and grandson of Edward Nourse of St. Michael's on Cornhill, London, was born in 1701 at Oxford, where his father had practised from 1686. He was apprenticed to John Dobyns, one of the assistant surgeons to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, on 6 Dec. 1717, and paid the sum of 161l. 5s. on apprenticeship. He was examined for his diploma at the Barber-Surgeons' Hall in Monkwell Street, London, 10 Dec. 1725, and received a diploma under the common seal of the company. Before this date the candidates had always entertained the court of examiners at supper, but on this occasion Nourse gave each examiner, and there were more than twelve, half a guinea to buy two pairs of gloves instead of the supper; and this method of payment prevailed thenceforward. When Mr. Dobyns, his master, died, he was on 22 Jan. 1731 elected assistant surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where he was on the staff with John Freke [q. v.], and afterwards with his own pupil, Percival Pott [q. v.] He was elected surgeon to the hospital on 29 March 1745, and became the senior surgeon before his death. He was elected demonstrator of anatomy by the Barber-Surgeons, 5 March 1731, and held office till 5 March 1734; and in 1728 was elected F.R.S. He was the first surgeon at St. Bartholomew's Hospital who gave regular instruction in anatomy and surgery, and his only publication is a syllabus of his lectures, printed in 1729, and entitled ‘Syllabus totam rem anatomicam complectens et prælectionibus aptatus annuatim habendis; huic accedit syllabus chirurgicus quo exhibentur operationes quarum modus peragendarum demonstrandus.’ In these lectures he began with the general structure of the body, then treated of the bones in detail, then of the great divisions of the body, then of arteries, veins, and lymphatic glands; next of the urinary and generative organs, then of the muscles, of the brain and sense organs, of the spinal cord, of the arm and leg, of the uterus and fœtus, and concluded the course of twenty-three lectures by one ‘de œconomia animali.’ He died 13 May 1761.
[Original Minute Books of St. Bartholomew's Hospital; Records at Barbers' Hall; Young's Annals of the Barber-Surgeons, 1890, p. 376; Thomson's History of the Royal Society, 1812; Foster's Alumni Oxonienses, 1500–1714; Works.]