William John Bishop

William John Bishop (1903 - 27 July 1961) was the first editor of the journal Medical History and a prolific writer. He read his first paper to the History of Medicine Society of the Royal Society of Medicine at the age of 26. With his friend Frederick Noël Lawrence Poynter, they wrote about the medical attendant of Oliver Cromwell in A Seventeenth Century Doctor and his Patients: John Symcotts, 1592?-1662.

• Notable Names in Medicine and Surgery. 1944. (2nd edition 1946, 3rd edition 1959)
• Medicine and Science in Postage Stamps. Harvey & Blythe, 1948. (With Norman Murdoch Matheson)
• A Seventeenth Century Doctor and his Patients: John Symcotts, 1592?-1662. John Symcotts, Streatley, 1951. (Edited with F.N.L. Poynter)
• Catalogue of the Library up to 1850. Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Manchester, 1956. (Compiler)
• Bibliography of International Congresses of Medical Sciences = Bibliographie des congrès internationaux des sciences médicales. Blackwell, Oxford, 1958. (Compiler)
• The Early History of Surgery. Hale, London, 1960. (Reissued as Knife, Fire and Boiling Oil: The Early History of Surgery, 2010)
• A Bio-bibliography of Florence Nightingale. Dawsons for The International Council of Nurses, London, 1962. (Completed by Sue Goldie)