In 1650 Wiseman returned with the prince to Scotland. At the battle of Worcester he was taken prisoner by the Parliamentary army under Cromwell and did not regain his liberty until 1652, at which time he settled permanently in London. After the Restoration in 1660, his practice increased very greatly and, so far as one may judge from the large number of cases which he reports in his work on surgery that was first published in 1676, it must have been very extensive and of a most varied character. I have read many of these reports of cases that occurred in Wiseman's practice, and have been much impressed with the thoroughly practical character of the treatment which he adopted in the majority of instances, and also with the very clear and concise manner in which he narrates the attendant circumstances—the nature of the malady or of the injuries received, the treatment which he adopted, and the final results attained. In the belief that they may furnish corroborative evidence of the statements which I have just made, I now take the liberty of reproducing here two of these reports of cases:—
(1) Whilst I was a prisoner at Chester (1651), after the battel
of Worcester, I was carried by Colonel Duckinfield's order to a
man that out of much zeal to the Cause, pursuing our scattered
forces, was shot through the joint of the elbow; the bullet entering
in at the external part of the os humeri, and passing out between
the ulna and radius. He had been afflicted with great pain the
space of six weeks. I found the wound undigested,[1] and full of a
loose, soft, white flesh, the bones fractured, and not likely to unite,
many shivers lying included within the joints, and incapable of
being drawn out. The lower part of the arm was oedematous to
the fingers' ends as full as the skin could well contain, and the
upper part was inflamed; also about the os humeri and axilla a
perfect phlegmon was formed. The patient thus tired with pain,
desired to be cured or have his arm cut off. To which purpose he
had procured the Governor's leave for my staying with him. But,
while that phlegmon was upon the upper parts, there was no hope
of a prosperous amputation, nor of cure while those shivers of
bone lay pricking the nervous parts within the joint. The phlegmon
- ↑ Not healing in a healthy manner.
