George Baker (surgeon)
English surgeon, born 1540
George Baker (1540 – 1600) was an English surgeon notable for writing and translating a number of early medical texts.
Career as surgeon
Baker was a member of the [[Company of Barbers and Surgeons of London]] and was elected master in 1597. In 1574, when he published his first book, Baker was attached to the household of the Earl of Oxford, and the writings of his contemporaries show that he had already attained to considerable practice in London. Banester of Nottingham speaks of his eminence in Latin verse:—
Ergo Bakere tuum superabit sidera nomen,
Atque aliqua semper parte superstes eris.
And Clowes, another contemporary, prophesies the lasting fame of his works in English verse of the same quality. The apex of his career was serving as the personal surgeon to Queen Elizabeth I.
Published works
Baker's first book was called The Composition or Making of the most excellent and pretious Oil called Oleum Magistrale and the Third Book of Galen. A Method of Curing Wounds and of the Errors of Surgeons. In 1576 Baker published a translation of the Evonymus of Conrad Gessner under the title of The Newe Jewell of Health, wherein is contained the most excellent Secretes of Physicke and Philosophie divided into fower bookes. Baker's own preface to the Newe Jewell is a good piece of English prose. He defends, as do many authors of that time, the writing a book on a learned subject in the vulgar tongue.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5536632. VIAF identifies the subject as 66337527. The Library of Congress control number is nr93000519. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1540, 1600, 1597 and 1574.
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This entry incorporates text from “George Baker (surgeon)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.