The Evolution of Modern Medicine: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Yale University on the Silliman Foundation in April, 1913Osler, William, Sir
History
The Evolution of Modern Medicine: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Yale University on the Silliman Foundation in April, 1913
Osler, William, Sir
Medicine -- History
The other early mediaeval university of special interest in medicine is
that of Montpellier. With it are connected three teachers who have left
great names in our story--Arnold of Villanova, Henri de Mondeville and
Guy de Chauliac. The city was very favorably situated not far from the
Spanish border, and the receding tide of the Arab invasion in the eighth
century had left a strong Arabic influence in that province. The date
of the origin of the university is uncertain, but there were teachers of
medicine there in the twelfth century, though it was not until 1289 that
it was formally founded by a papal bull.
Arnold of Villanova was one of the most prolific writers of the Middle
Ages. He had travelled much, was deeply read in Arabic medicine and was
also a student of law and of philosophy. He was an early editor of the
Regimen Sanitatis, and a strong advocate of diet and hygiene. His views
on disease were largely those of the Arabian physicians, and we
cannot see that he himself made any very important contribution to our
knowledge; but he was a man of strong individuality and left an enduring
mark on mediaeval medicine, as one may judge from the fact that among
the first hundred medical books printed there were many associated
with his name. He was constantly in trouble with the Church, though
befriended by the Popes on account of his medical knowledge. There is
a Bull of Clement V asking the bishops to search for a medical book by
Arnold dedicated to himself, but not many years later his writings were
condemned as heretical.
In Henri de Mondeville we have the typical mediaeval surgeon, and we
know his work now very thoroughly from the editions of his "Anatomy"
and "Surgery" edited by Pagel (Berlin, 1889-1892), and the fine French
edition by Nicaise (Paris, 1893). The dominant Arabic influence is seen
in that he quotes so large a proportion of these authors, but he was an
independent observer and a practical surgeon of the first rank. He had a
sharp wit and employed a bitter tongue against the medical abuses of his
day. How the Hippocratic humors dominated practice at this time you may
see at a glance from the table prepared by Nicaise from the works of de
Mondeville. We have here the whole pathology of the period.
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TABLEAU DES HUMEURS
D'APRES H. DE MONDEVILLE
Flegme naturel.
F. aqueux.
Flegme F. mucilagineux.
F. vitreux.
Flegme non naturel F sale.
F. doux.
F. pontique, 2 especes.
F. acide, 2 especes.
Bile naturelle.
Bile B. citrine.
B. vitelline
Bile non naturelle B. praline.
B. aerugineuse.
B. brulee, 3 especes.
Sang naturel.
non naturel, 5 especes.
Melancolie naturelle.
non naturelle, 5 especes.
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