Research Output
‘To level those monstrous Blotches or Pustules’: Skincare in Daniel Turner’s De Morbis Cutaneis (1714).
  In 1711 Daniel Turner removed himself from the Barber-Surgeons Company and was admitted to licentiate by the Royal College of Physicians. Turner battled with his reputation as a surgeon and his new recognition as a physician, so with his first publication as a licentiate, De Morbis Cutaneis: A Treatise of Diseases Incident to the Skin (1714), he attempted to demonstrate his skills in both internal and external medicine. In this essay, I examine Turner’s publication as the first English medical treatise on skin, and discuss select treatments for shingles, smallpox, and freckles. I address Turner’s attempt to underpin examples of common skin issues with professional medical reasoning and treatments, tackling misinformation while, at times, misrepresenting the medical sources of his treatments. Questioning the presentation of medical treatments in professional treatises, this essay considers the wider exchange of knowledge

  • Date:

    15 April 2024

  • Publication Status:

    Published

  • Funders:

    Edinburgh Napier Funded

Citation

Aske, K. (2024). ‘To level those monstrous Blotches or Pustules’: Skincare in Daniel Turner’s De Morbis Cutaneis (1714). In A. Ingram, H. Williams, & C. Lawlor (Eds.), Myth and (Mis)information: Constructing the Medical Professions in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century English Literature and Culture (23–40). Manchester,UK: Manchester University Press

Authors

Keywords

Daniel Turner, Skincare, Freckles, Pimples, De Morbis Cutaneis

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