‘To level those monstrous Blotches or Pustules’: Skincare in Daniel Turner’s De Morbis Cutaneis (1714).

Aske, Katherine

Abstract

In 1711 Daniel Turner removed himself from the Barber-Surgeons Company and was admitted to licentiate by the Royal College of Physicians. Turner battled with his reputation as a surgeon and his new recognition as a physician, so with his first publication as a licentiate, De Morbis Cutaneis: A Treatise of Diseases Incident to the Skin (1714), he attempted to demonstrate his skills in both internal and external medicine. In this essay, I examine Turner’s publication as the first English medical treatise on skin, and discuss select treatments for shingles, smallpox, and freckles. I address Turner’s attempt to underpin examples of common skin issues with professional medical reasoning and treatments, tackling misinformation while, at times, misrepresenting the medical sources of his treatments. Questioning the presentation of medical treatments in professional treatises, this essay considers the wider exchange of knowledge

Citation

Aske, K. (2024). ‘To level those monstrous Blotches or Pustules’: Skincare in Daniel Turner’s De Morbis Cutaneis (1714). In A. Ingram, H. Williams, & C. Lawlor (Eds.), Myth and (Mis)information: Constructing the Medical Professions in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century English Literature and Culture (23–40). Manchester University Press

• Online Publication Date: Apr 15, 2024
• Publication Date: 2024-04
• Deposit Date: Apr 25, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 16, 2025
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Pages: 23–40
• Book Title: Myth and (Mis)information: Constructing the Medical Professions in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century English Literature and Culture
• Chapter Number: 1
• ISBN: 978-1-5261-6682-1
• Keywords: Daniel Turner, Skincare, Freckles, Pimples, De Morbis Cutaneis
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/3600488
• Publisher URL: https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526166821/