MEDI/EVAL SCIENCE IN THE WEST 



cussion could have been possible, because this discov- 

 ery made it evident that as far as the general effect 

 upon the circulation is concerned, it made little differ- 

 ence whether the bleeding was done near a diseased 

 part or remote from it. But in the sixteenth century 

 this question was the all-absorbing one among the 

 doctors. At one time the faculty of Paris condemned 

 "derivation"; but the supporters of this method car- 

 ried the war still higher, and Emperor Charles V. him- 

 self was appealed to. He reversed the decision of the 

 Paris faculty, and decided in favor of "derivation." 

 His decision was further supported by Pope Clement 

 VII., although the discussion dragged on until cut 

 short by Harvey's discovery. 



But a new form of injury now claimed the atten- 

 tion of the surgeons, something that could be decided 

 by neither Greek nor Arabian authors, as the treat- 

 ment of gun-shot wounds was, for obvious reasons, 

 not given in their writings. About this time, also, 

 came the great epidemics, "the sweating sickness" 

 and scurvy; and upon these subjects, also, the Greeks 

 and Arabians were silent. John of Vigo, in his book, 

 the Practica Copiosa, published in 1514, and repeated 

 in many editions, became the standard authority on all 

 these subjects, and thus supplanted the works of the 

 ancient writers. 



According to Vigo, gun-shot wounds differed from 

 the wounds made by ordinary weapons that is, spear, 

 arrow, sword, or axe in that the bullet, being round, 

 bruised rather than cut its way through the tissues ; it 

 burned the flesh; and, worst of all, it poisoned it. 

 Vigo laid especial stress upon treating this last con- 



