Tröhler U (2003). William Cheselden (1688-1752).

© Ulrich Tröhler, Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern, Finkenhubelweg 11, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland, Email: utroehler@ispm.unibe.ch

William Cheselden was born in 1688 in a Leicestershire village. Having been apprenticed to a local surgeon, he moved to London where he assisted the anatomist William Cowper. After Cowper's death, Cheselden continued lecturing on anatomy in his own house, even performing autopsies there secretly.

In 1719 he was eventually elected a principal surgeon at St. Thomas's Hospital in London. Since his former master at the hospital had had a special licence for performing lithotomies, Cheselden became increasingly interested in the operative treatment of bladder stone.

He had a large and lucrative practice, including patients at Court. Cheselden was later appointed at the newly founded St. George's Hospital, and finally, in a kind of retirement position, at the Chelsea Hospital. He died in Bath in 1752.