Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/322

 named he gave a public reading of the first two sections "before a large and noble assemblage of medical students and other distinguished personages." The portrait of de Mondeville which is here reproduced is a copy of the miniature which appears in one of the manuscripts of his treatise that was prepared 1314 A. D., and is now preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. Nicaise furnishes the following details regarding the original miniature.

Inasmuch as the MS. bears the date 1314 the portrait must have been painted while De Mondeville was still living. The master is represented wearing a violet-colored gown, red stockings, and a black skull-cap. He is thin, his beard is scanty and of a grey color like the hair of his head, his features are finely cut, and he appears to be a fairly tall man. So far as one may judge from this portrait De Mondeville's age was then about fifty.

The date of his death is not known exactly, but it must have been somewhere about 1320 A. D.

Nicaise sums up de Mondeville's personal history and his contributions to the science of medicine somewhat as follows: He was a man of warm impulses, who loved the truth and despised all shams. He never hesitated to speak his opinion about others, the King himself not being excluded from his criticisms. He was also quite frank in his exposures of the ignorance of both nobles and members of the clergy. He was not in the least degree superstitious. He remained unmarried throughout life and seems to have entertained a slight disposition to find fault with women, for he attacks somewhat violently their mode of life and their extravagance, especially in the case of the women of Montpellier. Although he possessed a great reputation and a very large clientele of patients, he did not acquire a fortune. He is quoted as saying: "I was obliged from the very first to work hard for a living." Suppuration, according to the view of de Mondeville, was not a necessary phenomenon in the healing of wounds.

About the year 1316 the condition of de Mondeville's health—he probably had pulmonary tuberculosis—began to give him serious cause for anxiety lest he might not live