Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/568

 under Henry the Eighth. At a later date he joined the army of Philip the Second of Spain. In 1544 he was present at the battle of Montreuil in France, and he was also present at the siege of St. Quentin, in 1557. Two years later he returned to London and became a member of the Barber-Surgeons' Company. His death occurred in 1587.

Gale was the author of several books on surgical subjects, the most important of these works being that which deals with gunshot wounds. His views regarding wounds of this nature agree in the main with the teachings of Ambroise Paré; and yet, according to von Gurlt, he appears to have formed his opinions independently, for he does not once mention that surgeon's name. He was not only a skilful surgeon, but also a man of scientific and literary tastes, as shown by his translations of some of Galen's writings and of Giovanni da Vigo's treatise on surgery, and also by his own published works. His book on gunshot wounds, to which reference has already been made, is the one which reflects the greatest credit upon the author. One of its chief merits is to be found in the fact that it enabled the physicians of England to keep in some measure abreast of their brethren on the continent, at least in the matter of treatment by surgical means. In one part of the work he makes reference to the belief, which was held at that time by many surgeons, that the bullet not only scorched the flesh of the wound which it inflicted but also introduced into it a poisonous element. I quote here one or two extracts from the comments to which I have just referred:—

The usuall Gonnepowder is not venemous, nother the shotte of such hoteness as is able to warme the fleshe, much lesse to make an ascar Hange a bagge ful of Gonnepouder on a place convenient: and then stand so far of as your peece wil shote leavell, and shute at the same, and you shall see the Gonnepouder to bee no more set on fyer with the heat of the stone [used as a bullet] than if you caste a cold stone at it.

An English translation of Paré's book, says von Haller, was not published until 1577. It is therefore not strange that Gale, whose book was printed fourteen years earlier