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an English surgeon of the highest eminence, was born in Thread

, an English surgeon of the highest eminence, was born in Thread needle-street, London, in December 1713. His father dying before he was quite four years old, he was left, in some degree, to the protection and patronage of Wilcox, bishop of Rochester, who was a distant relation of his mother. The profession of surgery was his own decided choice, though the connection above mentioned might naturally have led him to the church; and, in 1729, he was bound apprentice to Mr. Nourse, one of the surgeons of St. Bartholomew’s hospital, under whom he was profoundly instructed, in what, at that time, was taught only by a few, the science of anatomy. His situation brought with it an abundance of practical knowledge, to which his own industry led him to add all that can be gained from a sagacious and careful perusal of the early writers on surgery. Thus qualified, he was admirably calculated to reform the superfluous and awkward modes of practice which had hitherto disgraced the art. In 1736, having finished his apprenticeship, he took a house in Fencburch-street, and quickly was distinguished as a young man of the most brilliant and promising talents. In 1745, he was elected an assistant surgeon; and, in 1749, one of the principal surgeons of St. Bartholomew’s hospital. It was one of the honours of Mr. Pott’s life, that he divested surgery of its principal horrors, by substituting a mild and rational mode of practice (notwithstanding the opposition of the older surgeons), instead of the actual cautery, and other barbarous expedients which had hitherto been employed and he lived to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing his improved plan universally adopted. Though he possessed the most distinguished talents for communicating his thoughts in writing, it seems to have been by accident that he was led to become an author. Immersed in practice, it does not appear that hitherto he had written any thing, except a paper “on tumours attended with a softening of the bones,” in the forty-first volume of the Philosophical Transactions; but, in 1756, a compound fracture of the leg, occasioned by a fall of his horse in the streets, gave him leisure to plan, and in part to write, his Treatise on Ruptures. The flattering reception of his publications attached him afterwards to this mode of employing his talents, so that he was seldom long without being engaged in some work. His leg was with difficulty preserved, and he returned to the labours of his profession. In 1764, he had the honour of being elected a fellow of the Royal Society; and in the ensuing year he began to give lectures at his house, which was then in Watling-street; but finding it necessary, from the increase of his business, to choose a more central situation, he removed, in 1769, to Lincoln’s-rnn-fields, and in 1777 to Hanover-square. His reputation had now risen nearly to the greatest height, bj means of his various publications, and the great success of his practice. He was universally consulted, and employed by persons of the first rank and situation; and received honorary tributes to his merit from the royal college of surgeons at Edinburgh and in Ireland. In 1787, he resigned the office of surgeon to St. Bartholomew’s hospital, “after having served it,” as he expressed himself, “man and boy, for half a century” and in December 1788, in consequence of a cold caught by going out of town to a patient in very severe weather, he died, at the age of seventy-five. He was buried near his mother, in the church of St. Mary Aldermary, Bow-lane, where a tablet was affixed to his memory, inscribed by his son, the rev. J. H. Pott, the present archdeacon of London, and vicar of St. Martin’s-­in-the-fields.