The Evolution of Modern Medicine A Series of Lectures Delivered at Yale University on the Silliman Foundation in April, 1913

Excerpt: ... French edition by Nicaise (Paris, 1893). The dominant Arabic influence is seen in that he quotes so large a proportion of these authors, but he was an independent observer and a practical surgeon of the first rank. He had a sharp wit and employed a bitter tongue against the medical abuses of his day. How the Hippocratic humors dominated practice at this time you may see at a glance from the table prepared by Nicaise from the works of de Mondeville. We have here the whole pathology of the period. =============================================================== TABLEAU DES HUMEURS D'APRES H. DE MONDEVILLE Flegme naturel. F. aqueux. Flegme F. mucilagineux. F. vitreux. Flegme non naturel F sale. F. doux. F. pontique, 2 especes. F. acide, 2 especes. Bile naturelle. Bile B. citrine. B. vitelline Bile non naturelle B. praline. B. aerugineuse. B. brulee, 3 especes. Sang naturel. non naturel, 5 especes. Melancolie naturelle. non naturelle, 5 especes. =============================================================== A still greater name in the history of this school is Guy de Chauliac, whose works have also been edited by Nicaise (Paris, 1890). His "Surgery" was one of the most important text-books of the late Middle Ages. There are many manuscripts of it, some fourteen editions in the fifteenth century and thirty-eight in the sixteenth, and it continued to be reprinted far into the seventeenth century. He too was dominated by the surgery of the Arabs, and on nearly every page one reads of the sages Avicenna, Albucasis or Rhazes. He lays down four conditions necessary for the making of a surgeon-the first is that he must be learned, the second, expert, the third that he should be clever, and the fourth that he should be well disciplined. You will find a very discerning sketch of the relation of these two men to the history of surgery in the address given at the St. Louis Congress in 1904 by Sir Clifford Allbutt.(20) They were strong men with practical...