Illustrations from the Wellcome Library. Joseph Fenton and his books.

The Wellcome Library copy of Antoine Lecoq's De ligno sancto non permiscendo, one of the many early sixteenth-century contributions to the debate on the use of guaiacum in the battle against the morbus gallicus, bears a bold and distinctive signature, "Joseph Fenton", together with a motto, "Sustine abstine" (which might be translated as "Bear and forbear"). It is one of half a dozen or so books in the Library which carry the same markings, and which were once part of a sizeable private medical library of the early seventeenth century.' Many more books from the collection survive today in the British Library, and elsewhere. This article seeks to bring attention not only to the books but also to Fenton and his career, all of which deserve to be better known to historians and bibliographers today. The name of Joseph Fenton may be familiar to those who have worked on the London medical scene of the early seventeenth century, though probably not as familiar as his contemporary fame and significance merit. A leading member of the Barber-Surgeons' Company and twice Master, he was for over thirty years one of the resident surgeons at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where his medical colleagues included his fellow surgeon John Woodall, author of The surgions mate, and William Harvey, physician at the Hospital from 1609. He was sufficiently respected by the College of Physicians to be granted a licence to administer internal medicines, and