Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Warner, Joseph
WARNER, JOSEPH (1717–1801), surgeon, the eldest son of Ashton Warner of Antigua in the West Indies, was born in 1717 [see under Warner, Sir Thomas]. He was sent to England early, and was educated for six or seven years at Westminster school. He was apprenticed for seven years to Samuel Sharpe [q. v.], surgeon to Guy's Hospital, on 3 Dec. 1734. Warner passed his examination for the great diploma of the Barber-Surgeons' Company on 1 Dec. 1741, and on 2 March following he paid the usual fee of 10l. and took the livery of the company. At this time he was acting with his master Sharpe, as joint lecturer on anatomy at Guy's Hospital. He volunteered to accompany the expedition in 1745, under the Duke of Cumberland, to suppress the rebellion in Scotland, and he was elected surgeon to Guy's Hospital, in succession to Pierce, on 22 Feb. 1745–6, an office he resigned on 30 June 1780. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 6 Dec. 1750, and on 5 April 1764 he was chosen a member of the court of assistants of the Corporation of Surgeons. He became a member of its court of examiners on 6 Aug. 1771, and he served as its master in 1780 and in 1784. When the present College of Surgeons was created in 1800 Warner became its first member, so that he was one of the very few surgeons who belonged to the three corporate bodies of surgeons which have existed in England.
Warner died at his house in Hatton Street on 24 July 1801. He shared with William Bromfield [q. v.], Sir Cæsar Hawkins [q. v.], and Sharpe the civil surgical practice of London, and it was the success of these surgeons which prevented John Hunter sooner coming to the front. A life-size half-length portrait, by Samuel Medley, is in the council-room of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Warner contributed little to the literature of surgery, but what he wrote is of interest as expressive of the opinions of contemporary surgeons. He was the first surgeon to tie the common carotid artery, an operation he performed in 1775. His works were: 1. ‘Cases on Surgery … to which is added an Account of the Preparation and Effects of the Agaric of the Oak in Stopping of Bleedings after some of the most capital Operations,’ London, 1754, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1754, 3rd edit. 1760, 4th edit. 1784; translated into French, Paris, 1757, 8vo. This is the work upon which Warner's reputation as a surgeon mainly rests. The cases extend over the whole domain of surgery, and are related with brevity, skill, and judgment. 2. ‘A Description of the Human Eye and its adjacent parts, together with their Principal Diseases,’ London, 1773, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1775. 3. ‘An Account of the Testicles … and the Diseases to which they are liable,’ London, 1774, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1775; translated into German, Gotha, 1775, 16mo.
[Wilks and Bettany's History of Guy's Hospital; Wadd's Nugæ Chirurgicæ; Hallett's Catalogue of Portraits and Busts in the Royal College of Surgeons of England; Gent. Mag. 1801, ii. 956. Additional information from the manuscript records of the Barber-Surgeons' Company, by the kind permission of the master, Sidney Young, esq., F.S.A., and from C. H. Wells, esq., of Guy's Hospital.]