FOURTEENTH-CENTURY DOCTORS. 689 



Mondeville rose bravely above this principle, but yielded some- 

 times to its influence, and also called the Arabians to Ms aid. 



On the subject of consultation at a distance, he observes that 

 " people have often asked counsel of us surgeons on the treatment 

 of diseases that we have not seen and can not see, because of the 

 absence and distance of patients who can not be brought to us, 

 while we can no more go to them. Under such conditions, it is 

 neither safe nor conformable to the precepts of the art and of a 

 good conscience to make out a prescription of curative treatment 

 for diseases hard to cure, like cancers, fistulas, etc. It is, how- 

 ever, permissible, after having legitimately excused one's self, to 

 prescribe a palliative treatment. In diseases easy to cure, in 

 recent small wounds for example, boils, tumors, slight contu- 

 sions, etc. we may give a curative prescription to absent persons. 

 We should laugh indeed at surgeons," he adds, "if the patient 

 had to appear personally before them for a light disease as well 

 as for a serious one. 



" Possibly the messengers from persons seriously ill will tell 

 us that they know as well as the patient himself all the details of 

 the disease ; but this is not possible, for no one can extract facts 

 as appropriate and useful in the particular case as the doctor. 

 The patient would not pay due heed to the questions if they did 

 not come from the doctor ; and even if the messengers did exact- 

 ly describe the condition of the patient as it was and even this 

 is not possible they would be wholly, or to a large extent, igno- 

 rant of his present state, for it would have changed in the in- 

 terim/' In the proceedings just described things were done cor- 

 rectly, as in our own time, but it was not always so ; and there 

 are some statements in Mondeville that throw a curious light on 

 the manners of the fourteenth century. 



He represents many persons as choosing their doctor without 

 troubling themselves to know whether he was well taught and ex- 

 perienced ; others were not satisfied till they had as many doc- 

 tors around them as possible. " There are frequently," he says, 

 " Parisians who, when ill, call together a great many doctors of 

 different sects, to consult with them. Some think that the more 

 surgeons they have, the sooner their disease will be cured the 

 same, for example, as ten masons working together on a wall 

 will accomplish as much in one day as one mason can in ten days. 

 Patients who know how to distinguish among surgeons the one 

 who has the best training and experience prefer to have only 

 one " and that is Mondeville's advice. 



But if complications arise, as a fourth day of fever,* it will be 



* " Most usually," says Mondeville, " the fever accompanying wounds is ephemeral ; 

 but sometimes it changes into a fever of suppuration, and this is to be feared when the 

 VOL. LI. 52 



