Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/478

474 at Montpeliier was Bernard Gordon, author of "Lillium Medicinæ," and a fellow student was John of Gaddesden, the first English Royal Physician, who is mentioned by Chaucer in his "Doctor of Physic." Guy did not like John's Book, "Rosæ Angliæ" because it lacked originality and clung to authority unsupported by experience. At Bologna he studied under Bertruccius, and he relates how "very often" to quote his exact words, his master dissected dead bodies in four lessons. His attitude toward anatomical study is shown by his expression, "The surgeon ignorant of anatomy carves the human body as a blind man carves wood." He practised first in his native province, later in Lyons, and finally was physician and chamberlain to three successive popes at Avignon. He occupied the latter part of his life with writing his "Chirurgia Magna," his "Solatium senectutis," he called it. Nicaise emphasizes the freshness and originality of Guy's viewpoint, and quotes him concerning the surgeons of his own and preceding generations as follows:

For while Socrates or Plato may be a friend, truth is a greater friend.

In writing on surgery of the brain he records the loss of brain substance with recovery, and notes the recovery, under expectant treatment, of many patients with suspected fracture of the skull. His study of the surgical anatomy of the ribs and diaphragm as applied in opening the thorax, shows sound surgical sense. In wounds of the intestines he gives an unfavorable prognosis unless the abdomen be quickly opened and the wounds sewed up. He describes his sutures and his special needle-holder, like any modern surgeon. In his chapter on amputations he writes on the use of opium, morel, hyoscyamus, mandragora, ivy, hemlock and lettuce to abolish pain during operations, and also refers to inhalation anesthesia, from a sponge soaked in various sleep-producing drugs. Taxis and reduction in hernia were developed by him, and he invented several trusses. Many operations for hernia, he wrote, benefited the surgeon more than the patient. In strangulation he insisted upon immediate operation. He describes six hernia operations, and criticizes all of them, easily enough, since all of the operations at this