Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/703

Rh His rancor against these patients is so great that he is ready to excuse and counsel even means which we would incontinently reject at this time, to compel them to pay acceptable fees. He does not seem to have put these measures into practice, for he had no fortune; but the fact that a king's surgeon should venture to speak as he does on so delicate a subject casts a curious light on the society of his day and its want of order; on the other hand, his remarks can not be generalized and applied wholesale to the period in which he lived.

Coming to Mondeville's exposition of the method of holding a discussion, we find his description almost a story of what might take place to-day. "First," he says, "we should inquire into the nature of the disease, examining carefully and feeling, because the diagnosis is made by touching with the hand and observing with the eye. All the consultants engage in turn in the examination. Then, if the case demands it, they make a new examination all together, pointing out to one another the symptoms of disease and the special or remarkable features either in the patient or the disease. Then one of them, the highest in rank, says to the patient, ‘Sir, we perceive very clearly what is the matter with you, and you ought to have full confidence in us. and be glad that there are so many of us here, and such doctors—enough for a king—and to believe that the youngest of us is competent to prescribe and carry on your treatment and bring it to a good result.’ Then he interrogates the patient about the circumstances of his attack: ‘Sir, do not be displeased or take it ill, but when did your illness begin?’ following this with many other questions, the answers to which are recorded as indications furnished by the patient.

"When all the questions called for by the case have been asked, the consultants retire to another room, where they will be alone; for in all consultations the masters dispute with one another in order the better to discuss the truth, and sometimes they come to a pass in the heat of discussion which would cause strangers witnessing their proceeding to suppose there were discord and strife among them. This is sometimes the case.

"The oldest, the most eminent, or the most illustrious of the doctors, if there is any such among them, a king's or a Pope's doctor, should propose that they all speak in turn. If they are all silent, as they would be in the presence of so eminent a chief, he should take the floor and question them, one after another, beginning with the youngest and least famous, and so on, passing always from the inferior to the superior. If the older ones spoke first, the younger and less considerable would have nothing to add, and the consultation would thus be of no effect; while, whatever the younger doctors might say, the older ones would have