Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/508

 was in the habit of employing sponges saturated with the juices of opium, Atropa mandragora, Conium maculatum, Hedera helix or arborosa, Lactuca and Daphne mezereum; his technique resembling very closely that employed by Guy de Chauliac, Theodoric and others. (See the appropriate chapters in the earlier part of this volume.)

In his remarks upon the manner of bringing about the healing of an open wound, Pfolspeundt says that "in all cases he tries to dispense with stitches, but that, when he finds such support necessary, he first spreads a thick layer of adhesive material over both margins of the wound and afterward introduces the threaded needle through the mass into the skin. Then, in order to bring the edges of the wound together, he draws the thread taut and makes it fast by means of a very small knot Whether the sharp fever which sometimes sets in afterward as a complication, is due to simple inflammation or to erysipelas, is a question which cannot always be decided; and it is still more difficult to determine whether the thin watery secretion which sometimes develops in a wound may not signify—as some writers maintain—the beginning of suppuration in a joint."

Were it not for the difficulty which one experiences in translating correctly the ancient provincial German of Pfolspeundt's text, I might readily furnish further examples of his surgical pathology and methods of treatment. The few, however, which I have already given will have to suffice.

Hans von Gerssdorff.—Hans von Gerssdorff, who was also called "Schielhans" (squint-eyed Hans), was born in Strassburg about the middle of the fifteenth century. He was a bold and skilful surgeon, and acquired a wide experience and great self-confidence from his long service in connection with the army. He was present, for example, at the famous battles of Grandson (1476, in Switzerland) and Nancy (1477, in France), in both of which the slaughter was very great, and in both also Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, was badly beaten. In 1517 von Gerssdorff published at Strassburg a treatise on military surgery,