Bladders and Brobdingnag

Generations of children will have read abridged versions of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1767). Sadly, if familiarity prevents rereading then much of the richness in this masterpiece will be missed. For example, few will be aware that Gulliver was a surgeon. Educated at Cambridge, Gulliver studied surgery for four years in London, and then studied medicine for two further years. The story of his adventures is peppered with surgical references. In Brobdingnag (a …