User:Rich Farmbrough/DNB/C/h/Charles Bernard

Charles Bernard|1650|1711| Charles Bernard (born 1650 died 1711), surgeon, was elected surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital 26 August 1686, upon the special command of the king (manuscript Journal St. Bartholomew's Hospital). He attained the chief surgical practice in London of his time, and became sergeant-surgeon to Queen Anne in the first year of her reign. He was famous for his skill in operating, and his desire never to operate unnecessarily. When other surgeons maintained that Hoadly, tutor of Catharine Hall, must lose his leg, Bernard undertook to save it and succeeded; so that delighted students of the Bangorian controversy owe whatever pleasure they feel in threading its mazes to the skill of Bernard who preserved Hoadly's leg in sufficiently canonical entirety to permit of his ordination the following year (Hoadly, Works, i. page viii). Bernard has left no professional works behind him, but a contemporary essay (The Present State of Chyrurgery, London, 1703) shows that he had, in advance of his time, formed from observation a true opinion as to the frequency of a fatal recurrence after the removal of malignant growths. He was master of the Barber Surgeons' Company in 1703, and a fine portrait of him hangs in their hall. The sheriff of London having neglected to deliver the bodies of criminals for dissection, Bernard, while master, proceeded against him and obtained his dismissal (manuscript copy of record at Barbers' Hall). His library, which he collected with regard to the beauty as well as the intrinsic merit of the books, was sold after his death (Bibliotheca Bernardiana). Swift, who was one of his friends, expresses in the 'Journal to Stella' a wish to go and look at the library before it was sold, and afterwards tells how he attended the sale and bought nothing. Bernard, perhaps owinff to the dying regprets of his colleague, Dr. Francis Bernard, made notes on the blank leaves as to the author or edition of his books, and, unlike the physician, paid great attention to their condition and binding. Books were his relaxation and delight, and no surgeon in England before his time had been so learned as he. He had a great practice, and was respected in his profession. Bernard was a tory and high churchman. His daughter married Dr. William Wagstaffe, afterwards physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. [Preface to Wagstaffe's Works.]

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