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 because, in the early part of the sixteenth century, the Protestants of that region were being subjected to every form of persecution; and it is almost certain that Franco belonged then to the Reformed Church, for he accepted the salaried office of City Surgeon at Berne, the authorities of which city were bitterly opposed to everybody and everything connected with the Roman Catholic Church. Franco held the office named during a period of ten years, the first part of the time at Berne, and afterward at Lausanne, which latter city was then under the control of the Bernese Government. He was a very close observer, a most enthusiastic student of his art, and a man of intensely religious nature. Malgaigne, the distinguished editor of the modern edition of Paré's writings, speaks thus of Franco: "I have no intention of writing here the history of this man who was endowed with such a fine surgical genius; I may say, however, that his was a life devoted entirely to the advancement of surgery as a science."

As an operative surgeon, says Edouard Nicaise, Franco ranked higher than any of his contemporaries. Strange as it may appear, Ambroise Paré frequently refused to take charge of cases in which an operation for stone in the bladder, for hernia, or for cataract was required, whereas Franco owed much of his reputation to the success which he had in operating upon these three classes of cases. The latter, furthermore, did most of his work on patients who belonged to the middle class, and consequently his operations were characterized by very little of the éclat which marked a large part of the work done by Paré, who from the very beginning was befriended by Royalty and the Court circle. At the same time, says Nicaise, Franco did more than any other man of that period to enrich surgery with new discoveries.

Franco has written only two treatises. The first one, which was published in Lyons, France, in 1556, bears the title: "A Small Treatise on the Operative Treatment of Hernia"—one of the most important departments of surgery (a book of 144 pages, 8vo). The second work, which was issued in 1561, also at Lyons but by a different pub