The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800Buck, Albert H. (Albert Henry)
History
The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800
Buck, Albert H. (Albert Henry)
Medicine -- History
With the names of the three English physicians mentioned above, there
should be associated that of Jehan Yperman, who was born in Ypern,
Flanders, during the latter half of the thirteenth century, obtained
his professional training in Paris under Lanfranchi, and then, in
1303 or 1304, accepted the position of Physician to the Hospital of
Belle, a small Flemish town. In 1318 he settled permanently in Ypern,
his native city, and in a comparatively short time won completely the
confidence and esteem of his fellow townsmen through his attentiveness
to their wants when they were ill and through the great skill which he
manifested in his work as a surgeon. He died 1329 A. D.
Yperman’s writings deal with both medical and surgical topics. Of
those which have been translated from the Latin into French are: “La
chirurgie de maitre J. Yperman,” Anvers, 1863; “Traité de médecine
pratique de maitre J. Yperman,” Anvers, 1863; and “Traité de médecine
pratique de maitre J. Yperman,” Anvers, 1867. A perusal of these
works, says Neuburger, easily convinces one that Yperman was not only
a skilful and clever surgeon, but also a physician of independent
judgment and wide experience.
_Revival of the Practice of Dissecting Human Bodies._--It was in
Italy that dissecting was carried on during the fourteenth century more
vigorously than elsewhere in Europe. At first the only persons who made
such investigations for scientific purposes were individual physicians
or groups of physicians; and, in addition, they were obliged to carry
on the work in a secret manner--that is, by stealing from recently
dug graves the corpses which were necessary for such studies. It is
related, for example, that in 1319 one of the teachers in the Medical
School at Bologna and four of his pupils were brought before the Court
of Law under the charge of having clandestinely disinterred, for
purposes of dissection, the body of a man who had been hung for some
crime. At first the authorities merely winked at such transgressions,
but at the same time they made no attempts to have the law against
dissecting annulled or at least modified. Then, at a somewhat later
period, the conviction became general among the intelligent members
of the community that, unless work of this nature were officially
sanctioned, no real advance in the knowledge of human anatomy could
be made, and--what was probably of even greater importance in their
estimation--that Bologna might at the same time lose a good deal of its
superiority over its rivals as a centre of learning; and accordingly
it was found practicable to grant the desired sanction with many
modifying restrictions attached. Then, with the further lapse of time,
other medical schools fell into line and secured from the authorities
similar privileges for their teachers and pupils. Thus, in 1368, the
Senate of Venice authorized the medical school of that city to make a
public dissection of a human body once every year; and, eight years
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