William Read (1648 - May 24, 1715) was a well-known unqualified
quack medical practitioner who made fraudulent medical claims, styled himself as an
oculist and was knighted by
Queen Anne for his medical services.
Career
Read was born in
Aberdeen. He was the son of a cobbler and originally worked as a
tailor. He was
illiterate.[1][2] He practiced
ophthalmology in the North and West of England for many years, and by 1694, settled at York Buildings in
Strand, London.[3] He was known for his
charlatan advertisements; for example, he claimed in the Tatler that "he had been thirty-five years in the practice of couching cataracts, taking off all sorts of wens, curing
wry necks and
hair-lips without blemish."[4]
In 1705, Read was appointed oculist to
Anne, Queen of Great Britain. On July 27, Read was knighted by Queen Anne for his services.[2][5] Queen Anne, who suffered from weak eyes has been described as a "natural prey of quacks".[6] Read advertised himself as "Her Majesty's Oculist".[2] A 1705 poem in honour of Read, "The Oculist" that appears in pamphlet form, is stored at the
British Museum and the library of the
Royal Society of Medicine.[2]
In 1706, Read authored a major work A Short But Exact Account of All the Diseases Incident to the Eyes. Many years later in 1932, ophthalmologist Arnold Sorsby revealed that part of the book was plagiarized from
Richard Banister's A Treatise of One Hundred and Thirteene Diseases of the Eyes, and Eye-liddes.[7]
^
abcdeJames, R. Rutson. (2013 edition). Studies in the History of Ophthalmology in England Prior to 1800. Cambridge University Press. p. 122-126.
ISBN978-1107625495
^Coleman, Vernon. (1998). The Story of Medicine. European Medical Journal. p. 108.
ISBN978-1898947646 "One of the most successful of the many relatively sophisticated quacks to make their fortunes in the eighteenth century was Sir William Read, a tailor, who set up in the Strand in London as an eye specialist in 1694 and who even managed to number Queen Anne among his patients. Read was knighted by Queen Anne and later became oculist to George I."
^Sydney, William Connor. (1891).
England and the English in the Eighteenth Century: Chapters in the Social History of the Times, Volume 1. Ward & Downey. p. 307. "Read, an impudent quack who practised by the light of nature in the city of Oxford, was one of those who were thus honoured, and as the queen experienced, or rather imagined she had experienced,' relief from his operations, she not only knighted him, but appointed him court oculist, an appointment which he enjoyed under her successor till his death, which occurred at Rochester on May 24, 1715."