RELATIONS OF MEDICINE AND SURGERY 197 



draw your attention; for we enter now upon a surgical contro- 

 versy which, pale reflection as it may be of the great surgical day- 

 spring of the nineteenth century, is, historically speaking, of sin- 

 gular interest. 



Hugh, of Lucca, says Malgaigne, is the first of the surgeons of 

 modern Europe whom we can cite with honor. This tribute is 

 a little strained; we may say, however, that of these honorable 

 ancestors Hugh seems to have been a chief. I say "seems to have 

 been;" for Hugh is even a dimmer giant than Roger or Roland. 

 We know that he was born of honorable family about the middle 

 of the twelfth century; that he served as surgeon in the campaigns, 

 and was present at the siege of Damietta; but of writing he left 

 not a line. Such vision as we have of him we owe to his loyal dis- 

 ciple, probably his son, the Dominican Theodoric, Bishop of Cervia, 

 and master of Henry of Mondeville. He completed his "surgery" 

 in 1266, but his life was almost coterminous with the thirteenth 

 century. What was Theodoric 's message? He wrote thus: "For 

 it is not necessary, as Roger and Roland have written, as many of 

 their disciples teach, and as all modern surgeons profess, that pus 

 should be generated in wounds. No error can be greater than this. 

 Such a practice is indeed to hinder nature, to prolong the disease, 

 and to prevent the conglutination and consolidation of the wound." 

 In principle what more did Lister say than this? Henry of Monde- 

 ville made a hard fight for the new principle, but the champions 

 of Galenism and suppuration won all along the line; and for five 

 following centuries poultices and grease were still to be applied 

 to fresh wounds, and tents, plastered with irritants to promote 

 suppuration, were still to be thrust into the recesses of them, even 

 when there was no foreign body to be discharged. If after all this, 

 erysipelas set in - - well, says Henry, lay it at the door of St. Eli- 

 gius! Hugh and Theodoric for the fresh wound rejected oil as too 

 slippery for union, and poultices as too moist; they washed the 

 wound with wine, scrupulously removing every foreign particle; 

 then they brought the edges together, forbidding wine or anything 

 else to remain within. Dry and adhesive surfaces were their de- 

 sire. Nature, they said, produces the means of union in a viscous 

 exudation, or natural balm as it was afterwards called by Paracel- 

 sus, Pare, and Wiirtz. In older wounds they did their best to obtain 

 union by cleansing, desiccation, and refreshing of the edges. Upon 

 the outer surface they laid only lint steeped in wine. Powders 

 they regarded as too desiccating, for powder shuts in decompos- 

 ing matters; wine, after washing, purifying, and drying the raw 

 surfaces, evaporates. The quick, shrewd, and rational observa- 

 tion, and the independent spirit of Theodoric, I would gladly illus- 

 trate farther did time permit; in passing, I may say that he was 



