Thomas Vicary A Famous Maidstone Surgeon

THOMAS VICARY of the blood by William Harvey, Vicary writes : " I fynde that Arteirs have two cotes as one cote is not sufficient nor able to withstande the violent moving and steering of the spirite of Iyfe that is caryed in them." He does not, however, give away all his knowledge, for his book ends " And this sufficeth for young Practitioners." Vicary's book was the first to be published in English on Anatomy, and a reprint of this, in black-letter, by the Surgeons of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, is included in The English-mans Treasure of 1633, a copy of which has been recently acquired by the writer for the Maidstone Museum. In his will, dated 27th January 1560, Vicary left his house and land next Boxley Church, and his leaseholds in Boxley under Sir Thomas Wyat's lease, to his nephew Stephen Vicary. Among many other bequests he also left 40s. a year to be distributed half-yearly to the poor of the parish of Boxley, and 13s. 4d. a year to the repair of Boxley Church. Several members of Vicary's family are mentioned in the Registers of Boxley Church, and in Lambert Larking's transcript of the Oxenhoath papers in the Maidstone Museum. It is remarkable that so Httle is known of such an eminent surgeon in his native town of Maidstone. This is probably owing to the fact that apart from Hasted's brief note that Vicary was one of Henry VIII's surgeons, he appears to have been completely ignored by all other writers of the histories and records of the town. 93