ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a brief overview of Joseph Binns, a London Surgeon. It examines the injuries Binns treated, then his handling of cases requiring repair techniques, and his treatment of a variety of diseases, concentrating upon his speciality, venereal disease. Joseph Binns was born in Derbyshire. He was made free of the Company of Barbersurgeons by apprenticeship to the London surgeon Joseph Fenton on 28 March 1637. Binns was elected as one of the three surgeons to St Bartholomew's Hospital on 12 November 1647. Binns casebook records his patience in the face of conditions which stubbornly refused to heal, and his flexibility regarding therapy. A significant part of Binns's practice was concerned with the surgical repair of such conditions as ulcers, herniae, apostems, fistulae and tumours such as hydrocephaly. Many of the apostemations of extremities Binns treated were very serious, possibly life-threatening, but were not the result of injuries. Binns treated many ailments which were produced by disease states.
