Letter 2858

Lovell writes of a surgeon who apprenticed ‘with ye Surgeon of the Dock then went as Surgeons Mate to Sea and was afterwards for one Year or two Surgeon of a small Man of War’. He is a braggart and claims to be superior to other medical practitioners. The man purportedly received his diploma in London, but Lovell believes it was ‘either spurious or not regularly obtained’. He questions the authenticity of the man’s medical license, noting that it looks counterfeit. Lovell thinks it right to bring the case to the attention of Sloane and the Royal College of Physicians. Thomas Lovell was a physician, of Plymouth.