fundamental feature of the
training for it. He declared that it was absurd to think that surgeons
could do good work unless they knew their anatomy.

{79}

Under his fostering care the study of anatomy flourished to a
remarkable degree at the University of Montpelier. The difficulty
hitherto had been that it was very hard to procure bodies for
dissecting purposes. It is easy to understand that friends of the dead
would always prevent dissections as far as they could. They do so even
at the present moment, and there are not many of us who find it in our
hearts to blame them over much for it. Few of us are ready to make the
sacrifice of our own dead. Even the poor in those days had friends who
prevented the cutting up of their remains; for large alms-houses were
not presided over by paid officials, but by religious, to whom their
poor in their friendlessness appealed as kindred. There were not many
prisons, and they were not needed because all felonies were punished
by death. Guy de Chauliac realized that here was the best opportunity
to procure bodies. Accordingly it was mainly through his
instrumentality that a regulation was made handing over the dead
bodies of malefactors to the medical school for dissecting purposes.
It must be recalled that when he did this the Papal court was at
Avignon, in the South of France, and exerted great influence over the
University of Montpelier, situate not far away.

The reputation of the University of Paris is such that we should not
expect her to be backward in this important department of education.
As a matter of fact, there is abundant evidence of dissection having
been carried on here at the end of the thirteenth century, and the
practice was not interrupted at the beginning of the fourteenth
century. Lanfranc, the famous surgeon who had studied with William of
Salicet in Italy (we have already mentioned both of them and we shall
have much {80} to say of them hereafter), taught surgery from a very
practical standpoint in Paris, and illustrated his teachings by means
of dissections. Lanfranc was succeeded in Paris by Mondeville, whose
name is also associated with the practice of dissection by most
historians of medicine, and whose teaching was of such a practical
character that there can be no doubt that he must have employed this
valuable adjunct in his surgical training of students. In general,
however, the records of dissecting work and of anatomical development
are not near