evoted to intoxications, which includes the effects of
cantharides as well as alcohol, and treats of the bites of snakes,
scorpions, and of hydrophobia due to the bites of mad hounds. There is
scarcely a feature of modern surgery of the head that is not touched
upon very sensibly in this work.

The best proof, however, at once of the flourishing state of surgery
during the fourteenth century and of the utter absurdity of saying
that surgery did not develop because of the opposition of the Church
or of ecclesiastics, and above all of the Popes, is to be found in the
life of Guy de Chauliac, who has been deservedly called the Father of
Modern Surgery and whose contributions to surgery occupy a prominent
place in every history of medicine that one picks up. While the works
of other {182} great writers in surgery of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries have as a rule only come to be commonly known
during the latter part of the nineteenth century, Guy de Chauliac's
position and the significance of his work and his writings have been a
commonplace in the history of medicine for as long as it has been
written seriously. We have already stated in several places in this
volume his relations to the Popes. He was a chamberlain of the Papal
Court while it was at Avignon, and while he was teaching and
developing surgery at the University of Montpelier he was also body
physician to three of the Popes, and the intimate friend and
influential adviser to whom they turned for consultation in matters
relating to medical education and to science generally.

In the present chapter, then, we shall only discuss the contributions
to surgery of this surgeon of the Popes, at a time when, according to
President White, because of Church opposition, surgery was considered
dishonorable; "_when the greatest monarchs were often unable to secure
an ordinary surgical operation, and when it required an edict of the
German Emperor in order that dishonor should no longer attach to the
surgical profession._" This is what Chauliac accomplished, according
to Professor Allbutt:

"Of his substantial advances in surgery no sufficient account is
possible; but some chief points, with the aid of Haeser, Malgaigne,
and Nicaise, I may briefly sum up thus: He pointed out the dangers
of surgery of the neck, among them that of injuring the voice by
section of the recurrent laryngeal nerve, a precaution he probably
learned from Paul. He urges a low diet