Blizard , Sir , William , 1743-1835 , Knight , surgeon

Sir William Blizard was born at Barn Elms, Surrey in 1743. He was apprenticed to a surgeon at Mortlake, and studied at the London Hospital. He attended the lectures of Sir Percival Pott at St Bartholomew's Hospital. He was appointed surgeon to the London Hospital in 1780 and in 1785 founded the London Hospital Medical School together with Dr MacLaurin. Blizard lectured at the Medical School on Anatomy, Physiology and Surgery, and improved the London Hospital. He attached importance to the observance of ceremony, for which he was often mocked. Blizard was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1787, and was Master of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1814, and President in 1822. Blizard had a considerable practice, and attended Batson's Coffee House in Cornhill to await consultations. He died in 1836.

The name Samuel Helbert Israel [?] is inscribed at the top of the title page, possibly indicating the author of the lecture notes. P I and R V Wallis in Eighteenth Century Medics (1988), list a Samuel H Israel as a surgeon in London in the 18th and 19th centuries. He was apprenticed to Thomas Blizard (Sir William Blizard's nephew and also a surgeon at the London Hospital) in 1802.