CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION

Summary

During his late teens and early twenties Samuel Pepys, the famous diarist and naval administrator under Charles II, suffered from bladder stones. By the time he was twenty-five the pain which this caused became so intense that he decided to seek medical treatment. He was eventually cut for the stone on 26 March 1658. Although the operation was both extremely painful and dangerous, his surgeon, Thomas Hollier, was highly experienced and had successfully operated on numerous patients, and Pepys would live for another 45 years. In his diary entry for 26 March 1660 – the first year of his diary – Pepys recalls the experience as follows :

This day it is two years since it pleased God that I was cut of the stone at Mrs. Turner's in Salisbury Court. And did resolve while I live to keep it a festival, as I did the last year at my house, and for ever to have Mrs. Turner and her company with me. But now it pleases God that I am where I am and so prevented to do it openly; only within my soul I can and do rejoice, and bless God, being at this time blessed be his holy name, in as good health as ever I was in my life.

Pepys would commemorate the ‘solemn day’ and ‘solemn feast’ of his successful operation throughout his diary, neglecting to mention its anniversary only in 1666 and 1668 (by 1669 he was in doubt whether the operation took place ten or eleven years ago).