Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/512

 of the seventeenth century, artificial anaesthesia was also effected through the application of snow or ice to the part.

The date of von Gerssdorff's death is not known.

Fabricius of Hilden.—Fabricius Hildanus—or Fabricius of Hilden, near Düsseldorf—was born in 1560 and received his early training in surgery from Cosmas Slotanus, a pupil of Vesalius and the first barber-surgeon of Duke Wilhelm of Guelich-Cleve-Berg (eighteen miles northeast of Aix-la-Chapelle). In 1585 he visited Geneva, Switzerland, and continued his studies in that city under the guidance of Jean Griffon, one of the most distinguished surgeons of that period. After leaving Geneva he practiced medicine at Cologne, and during that period (1591-1596) steadily increased his reputation as a skilful surgeon, particularly well versed in anatomy. But he appears to have acquired a strong liking for Switzerland and for the professional friends whom he had gained in that country; and consequently it is not surprising to learn that, during the later years of his life, he spent long periods of time in Geneva, Lausanne and Berne, in the last of which cities he filled the office of City Physician. He died in 1634, at the age of seventy-four, full of honors and greatly beloved by all who knew him.

Fabricius of Hilden laid great stress upon the importance, to the surgeon, of a thorough grounding in anatomy. He had been profoundly impressed by the fact that his instructor at Geneva, Jean Griffon, never undertook an important operation until after he had refreshed his memory by a dissection of the region involved. He was also much interested in pathological anatomy, and always availed himself of every possible opportunity for making a postmortem examination. As evidence of the slowness with which news of important scientific discoveries, particularly in the domain of medicine, traveled in those days I may mention here the fact that, up to the time of his death in 1634, Fabricius had not heard of Harvey's great discovery of the circulation of the blood (1628). Although he gained distinction in more than one field of medicine his greatest reputation was unquestionably gained in that of