Arnold’s writings are full of precepts which, like those quoted above, show him to have been an excellent practitioner of medicine as well as a man of sound common sense. And yet at the same time he appears to have been more or less tainted with the prevailing belief in astrology, in the efficacy of amulets (as in the case of Pope Boniface referred to on a previous page), etc. His enemies gave him the reputation of being a sorcerer upon whom the Devil had bestowed the power of transmuting metals,--a reputation which undoubtedly was based upon the fact that Arnold interested himself greatly in alchemistic processes, often referring to them as closely resembling such organic phenomena as generation, birth, growth, etc. But, in our judgment of the man, we should be careful to remember that during the thirteenth century a belief in alchemy, astrology, the efficacy of amulets, the influence of supernatural agencies, etc., was almost universal. Even theologians maintained that it was a sin for a practitioner of medicine to neglect the influence of certain constellations. Indeed, there are even to-day, not a few very sensible people in whose minds exists a lingering belief in the interference of supernatural agencies in human affairs. The importance of the influence which Arnold of Villanova exerted upon the progress of medical science, and more especially upon the fame of the Medical School of Montpellier, should not be estimated exclusively from the value of his writings nor from the character of the work which he performed as an instructor in that school. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries physicians as a class did not hold so high a position socially in Western Europe as they were probably entitled to hold, and consequently Arnold’s later career, in which he showed himself to be a wise, broad-minded, and very able statesman and as an enthusiastic champion of greater liberty of thought in the domain of religion, must be looked upon as having aided very materially in raising the profession of medicine to a higher rank and in adding éclat to the School of Montpellier. _Contemporaries and Successors of Arnold of Villanova at Montpellier._--During Arnold’s lifetime there does not appear to have been another physician at Montpellier who could be compared with him in professional ability or in general culture. There was one, however, who attained considerable fame as a medical author, and who certainly deserves at least a brief notice in this place--Bernard de Gourdon, also known as Gordonius.