r the surgeon from
the presence of anatomical anomalies of various kinds, and describes
certain of the more important of them. He did not hesitate to suggest
some very serious operations. For instance, for empyema he advises
opening of the chest. He has very exact indications for trephining. He
recognizes the absolute fatality of wounds of the abdomen, in which
the intestines were opened, if they were left untreated, and describes
a method of suturing wounds of the intestines in order to save the
patient's life. In a word, there is nothing that has been attempted in
these modern times, with our aseptic precautions and the advantage of
anaesthesia, which this father of surgery did not discuss very
practically and with excellent common sense as well as surgical
acumen.

Chauliac's career is interesting because it is that of a self-made man
of the Middle Ages, which brings out the fact that men do not differ
so much as might be thought at this distance of time, and shows that
there were chances for a man to rise by his own genius from a lowly to
a lofty position at this time of the Middle Ages, when it is usually
supposed that men were excluded from such opportunities. Allbutt says
of him:

"Still, Guy of Chauliac, who flourished in the second {186} half of
the fourteenth century, was enabled to feed his virile and
inquisitive spirit on rich sources of learning. While he succeeded
to the stores of Arnold (of Villanova) and Gordon with his just and
cautious reason and wealth of experience, he cast out of them much
of the sorcery, jugglery, astrology and mysticism which were their
reproach. Chauliac is a village in the Auvergne, and Guy was but a
farmer's lad. It was by the aid of powerful friends that he studied
at Toulouse and Montpelier, took orders and the degree of Master of
Medicine; in his time there was no degree of Doctor of Medicine in
France. Then he studied anatomy at Bologna under Bertruccio, the
successor of Mondino, a study which, with Henry (de Mondeville) he
regarded as the foundation of surgery. The surgeon ignorant of
anatomy, he says, "carves the human body as a blind man carves
wood." [Footnote 24]

[Footnote 24: This is a very striking reflection on the necessity for
the study of anatomy for the practice of surgery to have been made
within a half century after the supposed prohibition of dissection by
the Popes, and at a time when, according to President White, "even
s