Twenty-second International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

In this paper, I focus on two translators’ prefaces introducing two seminal anatomical and surgical works published in Britain in 1733 and 1814, respectively. The first one is written by the physician George Douglas, (?-1737), whose translation of Jacques-Bénigne Winsløw’s (1669-1760) Exposition anatomique de la structure du corps humain, (1732), was published as Anatomical exposition of the structure of the human body in 1733. The second is written by the surgeon John Henry Wishart (1781 – 1834), whose translation of Antonio Scarpa’s (1752–1832) Sull’ernie. Memorie anatomico chirurgiche, (1809), was published as A Treatise on Hernia in 1814. By comparing both prefaces and a selection of their original and translated excerpts, I interrogate the extent to which anatomical and surgical lexica was uniform between two languages and if uniformity was possible or even desired. I also analyze when and how different translator strategies were implemented to accurately transfer knowledge to specific readers with very different pedagogical and procedural needs. Ultimately, the resulting translations were the product of a complex linguistic and scientific reflection that began with the highlighting of the perceived strengths and limitations of both source and targeted languages and included a comparative analysis of Classical rhetoric, notions of textual organization and a novel nomenclature only partially displayed. It was in this linguistic topological space that the quest for the most accurate English anatomical and surgical body continued to be written.