1 52 MEDICAL SCIENCES. 



which latter city employed an experienced practitioner, who was paid out of 

 the municipal funds. The principal objection urged against Salicetti was 

 that for healing sores he resorted too much to cauterization and the knife, 

 instead of applying toxical and medicinal remedies. He was, however, the 

 teacher of Lanfranc, who always respectfully spoke of him as " my master of 

 honoured memory." Compelled to quit his country for political reasons, this 

 celebrated Milanese professor fled into France, and was invited to Paris by 

 his compatriot, Passavant, Dean of the Faculty, and by Pitard, surgeon-in- 

 chief to King Philippe le Bel. After performing several difficult operations of 

 surgery, which won him great renown, he opened a school, which was very 

 numerously attended. It may be said that his teaching brought about a 

 complete reform in French surgery, and his two works, " Chirurgia Magna " 

 and " Chirurgia Parva," became the manual of practical science ; for, before 

 his time, this branch of the art, in the hands of ignorant barbers, both in 

 France, Spain, and Germany, was almost crushed beneath the yoke of 

 medical omnipotence. Thus all surgeons, male and female (for many women 

 insisted on being attended by their own sex in certain cases), were compelled 

 to give an undertaking that they would limit their labours to handiwork ; that 

 they would not give any consultation or administer any internal remedy 

 without the advice or the permission of a physician. The surgeon was free 

 to operate as he pleased, but he could not give an opinion or write a prescrip- 

 tion. Moreover, in verv grave cases, important operations were not left to the 

 decision of the patient, or even to that of the practitioner, however eminent he 

 might be. The permission either of the bishop or of the feudal lord was 

 necessary, and the operation was invariably preceded by a solemn consultation 

 in presence of the friends and relatives of the patient. These exaggerated 

 precautions are all the more surprising, for while the civil and religious 

 authorities seemed to be so particular with regard to operations performed by 

 eminent surgeons, they scarcely interfered at all with the minor operations 

 performed by barbers or hospital nurses. Moreover, the leading surgeons 

 would have considered it beneath their dignity to perform in unimportant 

 cases. At the end of the thirteenth century they did not condescend to 

 operate themselves in cases of puncture for dropsy, of stone, of hernia, or of 

 cataract, and they even disregarded the study of internal diseases as unworthy 

 of their profession. 



The genius of Lanfranc was instrumental in bringing about a better 



