Authority Cited: Sharpe; Sharp.
Author name and dates: Samuel Sharp (1700?-1778)
BKG Bio-tweet: Noted surgeon; in Garrick club; examined A. William's cataracts at J. Hawkin's request; link between old and modern surgery
Categories (list of works cited – preliminary) [BKG Note: about 62 Sharp cites in 1755 Dict. vol. 1, about 83 cites in 1755 Dict. vol. 2. Three Sharp cites were identified as added in the 1773 Dict., indicated in bold italic below. The edition of the Treatise on the Operations of Surgery used by SJ is unknown.]
Author name and dates: Samuel Sharp (1700?-1778)
BKG Bio-tweet: Noted surgeon; in Garrick club; examined A. William's cataracts at J. Hawkin's request; link between old and modern surgery
Categories (list of works cited – preliminary) [BKG Note: about 62 Sharp cites in 1755 Dict. vol. 1, about 83 cites in 1755 Dict. vol. 2. Three Sharp cites were identified as added in the 1773 Dict., indicated in bold italic below. The edition of the Treatise on the Operations of Surgery used by SJ is unknown.]
- Treatise on the Operations of Surgery: SAMUEL SHARP. A Treatise on the Operations of Surgery. London, 1st ed. 1739. (per Wimsatt, Philosophic Words, p. 158) [BKG Note: the Sharp edition SJ used is uncertain. The 4th edition was 1743, the 6th edition was 1751] A treatise on the operations of surgery, with a description and representation of the instruments used in performing them: to which is prefix'd an introduction on the nature and treatment of wounds, abscesses and ulcers. By Samuel Sharp, Surgeon to Guy's Hospital., The sixth edition, with several alterations., 1751, London : printed for J. and R. Tonson and S. Draper; adult; aneurism; aponeurosis; as though; ascites; atheroma; basilick; bolster; bronchotomy; bubonocele; burn; burrow; . . . take; tap; temper; tenseness; terribleness; thread; three; tourniquet; tow; transpiration; trocar; tuck; tumefy; tunick; twitch; varicous; uninterrupted; wimble; withinside; wry.
- A Description of a new Method of opening the Cornea, in order to extract the crystalline Humour: A Second Account of the new Method of opening the Cornea, for taking away the Cataract (both in the Philosophical Transactions for 1753). [BKG Note: this work was likely too late to be quoted in the 1755 Dictionary, but is relevant to the failed attempt to remove Anna William's cataracts. See The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., by Sir John Hawkins, Knt. edited by O.M. Brack, Jr., 2009, U. of Georgia Press, p. 195. Since Hawkins says that Williams was brought into Johnson's household, after his wife's death, for the convenience of the proposed cataract operation, and Frank Barber's much later recollection was that Williams was residing at Gough Square when he came there as a child in the spring of 1752, the examination of Williams by Sharp was likely in 1752, before these Philosophical Transactions papers were presented, which describe the outcomes of several 1753 cataract operations. BKG 2021 Note: SJ's continued acquaintance with Sharp is reflected in an Oct. 18, 1760 letter to Bennet Langton commenting on the hopes for preservation of Langton's father's sight: "Mr. Sharpe is of the opinion that the tedious maturation of the cataract is a vulgar errour, and that it may be removed as soon as it is formed." (The Letters of Samuel Johnson, ed. Bruce Redford, 1992, vol.1, p. 193.)]
- Sharp (no work cited); about 145 quotations of Sharp, Sharpe, or Sharp's Surgery are included in the 1755 Dict. The following have been identified as additions in the 1773 Dict.: cicatrization; digestion; fungus [BKG Note: the quote for each of these additions is taken from a quote in the 1755 Dict. that illustrates a different word in the quotation. Thanks to Prof. Beth Rapp Young for pointing out that fishmeal is incorrectly attributed to Sharpe; should be Shakespeare.]