688 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tunity, wliicli would be valuable in some cases, to correct it, add 

 to it, subtract, oppose, or applaud it. He should ask them con- 

 cerning the character of the disease, what it is called, what the 

 experience of experts has been with it, what authors mention it,* 

 and in what part of their works. These questions being answered, 

 he should inquire whether the disease is curable or not, and how. 

 For a simple example in surgery," says Mondeville, " to show 

 better how the thing is done, suppose a tumor on a fleshy part, the 

 shoulder or the thigh, is to be treated : the doctor should inquire 

 of what matter or humor it is formed ; whether of the blood, for 

 example. He should then inform himself concerning the disease, 

 its beginning and progress, and ask if an evacuation is not desir- 

 able. This being decided upon, of what kind a bleeding ? If 

 yes, in what limb or what vein, when and where ; for the practice 

 varies according to the season and the habits of the patients, and 

 according to the aspects of the moon and the heavenly bodies and 

 an infinite variety of things." Such is the regular, decorous con- 

 sultation, but things did not always go on thus smoothly. 



Before repeating what Mondeville says concerning the inci- 

 dents of consultations, I will expound the sage precepts he lays 

 down for consultation at a distance, a subject to which he de- 

 voted a whole notable. This is an important point when we 

 recollect that at that time, and thence on down to the sixteenth 

 century, the doctor often gave his advice without leaving his 

 office, without seeing the patient, by examining his fluids and 

 asking some questions of the messenger.f It is not worth while 

 to give all that Mondeville says, but only the principal parts of 

 his chapter, omitting the arguments which he draws from the 

 authors that preceded him. It was one of the characteristics of 

 the period, as I have already remarked, that authors generally 

 rested their opinions, not principally on their own experience and 

 studies, but on what Galen and some Arabian authors said. The 

 respect of some for their predecessors was absolute, and they 

 cared for nothing besides what rested on the authority of these. 



* This was characteristic of the age. Even doctors well instructed and advanced in 

 experience did not venture to rest on their personal opinion, but had always to invoke a 

 predecessor, Galen or the Arabs, as the original authority. Mondeville, however, paid less 

 attention to this custom than some of the others. 



f Already at that time famous doctors and surgeons went to see their patients, notwith- 

 standing the diffiulties of communication ; Lanfrance, Mondeville, and Guy de Chauliac 

 give U3 proof of this fact. There were other doctors, clerks, and canons, as were most of 

 the maitres regents of the Faculty of Paris, whose dignity forbade their visiting patients and 

 who gave consultations by interrogating the messenger and analyzing the urine of the pa- 

 tient. This custom disappeared after the reform introduced in 1452 by Cardinal d'Estonte- 

 ville, who obliged the new doctors regents who received no prebends from the Church, to 

 busy themselves with their patients. The contest of the faculty and the surgeons origi- 

 nated at that time. 



