The most interesting feature of the work of the North Italian surgeons of the later Middle Ages is their discovery and development of the two special advances of our modern surgery in which we are inclined to take most pride. These are, union by first intention, and anæsthesia. It is of course very startling to think that surgeons of seven centuries ago should have made advances in these important phases of surgery--which were afterwards to be forgotten; but human history is not a story of constant progress, but of ups and downs, and the mystery of human history is the decadence that almost inevitably follows any period of supremely great accomplishment by mankind. The later Middle Age enjoyed a particularly great period of efflorescence and achievement in surgery, and this, quite as with literature and other phases of human accomplishment, was followed by distinct descent of interest in surgical theory, and decadence in surgical practice, until the Renaissance came to provide another climax of surgical development. It would be perilous to say, however, that the acme of the curve of Renaissance surgical progress was higher than its predecessor, though once more there is the surprise to find that this high point was followed by another descent, until the curve ascended again in our time. What we have said already with regard to the requirement of cleanliness in operating upon the skull, insisted upon by the Salernitan School, will suggest that some of the practical value of asepsis had come home to these old-time surgeons. The North Italian surgeons went, however, much farther in their anticipations of asepsis. They insisted that if a surgeon made a wound through an unbroken surface and did not secure union by first intention, it was usually his own fault. It is to them we owe the expression "union by first intention"--_unio per primam intentionem_--which means nothing to us except through its Latin equivalent. They boasted of getting linear cicatrices which could scarcely be seen, and evidently their practice fostered the best of surgical technique and was founded on excellent principles. The North Italian surgeons replaced the use of ointments by wine, and evidently realized its cleansing--that is, antiseptic--quality. What is often not realized is, that the very old traditional treatment of wounds by the pouring of wine and oil into them represented a mild antiseptic and a soothing protective dressing. The wine inhibited the growth of ordinary germs, the oil protected the wound from dust and dirt. They were not ideal materials for the purpose, but they were much better when discreetly used than many surgical dressings of much more modern times founded on elaborate theories. Professor Clifford Allbutt, reviewing the practice of these North Italian surgeons of the thirteenth century, says:[9]