He describes the operation for stone:—The patient being in proper position, the stone is conducted to the neck of the bladder by the finger in the rectum; an incision is made and the stone is pulled out with an instrument called _trajectorium_. Mondino’s book passed through not less than twenty-three editions between the years 1478-1580. The only manuscript extant is in the National Library at Paris. The first printed edition of the _Anathomia Mundini_, Pavia, 1478, is a folio of twenty-two leaves. The Strassburg edition, 1513, is a small octavo volume of forty leaves. It contains a diagram of the heart and an astrological figure, a cadaver with the thorax and abdomen opened, surrounded by the signs of the zodiac. Such was the volume which for more than two hundred years was supposed to contain all that was to be said of human anatomy! [Illustration: COLOPHON OF THE ANATOMY OF MONDINO, 1513] So numerous are the abbreviations in Mondino’s book, so barbarous is his style, that the making of a translation is a difficult task. His reasons for writing are these:—“A work upon any science or art—as saith Galen—is issued for three reasons; _First_, that one may help his friends. _Second_, that he may exercise his best mental powers. _Third_, that he may be saved from the oblivion incident to old age”. CHAPTER THIRD Mondino’s Successors [Illustration: Illuminated capital] For two hundred years anatomists used Mondino’s book as a text for their lectures and for the same period anatomical writers did little more than comment upon this treatise. The new art of wood engraving was turned to anatomical use and crude illustrations of the various parts of the body were put into circulation. Some of these pictures were in the form of _Fliegende Blätter_, or flying leaves. A set of anatomical plates of this type was issued by a certain Ricardus Hela, a physician of Paris, as early as the year 1493. They were printed at Nuremberg. Their character may be judged by the accompanying illustration of the osseous system. Gabriel de Zerbi One of Mondino’s commentators was Gabriel de Zerbi (1468-1505), of Verona, who taught medicine, logic and philosophy in the Universities of Padua, Bologna and Rome. His book, _Anatomia Corporis Humani_, appeared at Venice in 1502. Zerbi imitated Mondino in style, abbreviations and language. The work, however, contains some original observations regarding the Fallopian tubes, the puncta lachrymalia and the lachrymal gland. From the fact that Zerbi describes two lachrymal glands in each orbit, it is known that many of his dissections were made upon brutes. [Illustration: ANATOMICAL PLATE BY RICARDUS HELA, 1493]