he is not
entirely convinced himself, because the old mode of view has so firm a
hold on him that he is not open to conviction. A little later in this
same passage he speaks of taking up the study of Chauliac, prejudiced
against him, and being convinced of his greatness against his
will. Verily history has been a conspiracy against the truth, in which
many people have joined almost unconsciously, led astray by feeling,
not intellect.]

[Illustration:
Guy de Chauliac's Instruments:--15, 16, cautery apparatus with canula
for cauterizing the uvula and tonsils; 17, bistoury; 18, amputation
knife; 19, small sickle knife for opening abscesses and fistulas.]

[Illustration: Guy de Chauliac's Instruments:--21, bow for extracting
arrows the head of which had penetrated a limb; 22, mechanical
trephine revolved by up-and-down movement of cross-bar.]

We have seen that there was great surgery in Italy, in France, and in
the Netherlands, but it had also crossed the channel into England.

There was a famous English surgeon during the {188} fourteenth century
by the name of John Ardern. He was educated at Montpelier and
practiced surgery for a time in France. About the middle of the
century, however, according to Pagel, he went back to his native land
and settled for some twenty years at Newark, in Nottinghamshire, and
then for nearly thirty years longer, until nearly the end of the
century, was in London. He is the chief representative of English
surgery during the Middle Ages. His Practice, as yet unprinted,
contains, according to Pagel, a short sketch of internal medicine, but
is mainly devoted to surgery. Contrary to the usual impression with
regard to works in medicine and surgery at this time, the book abounds
in references to case histories which Ardern had gathered, partly from
his own and partly from others' experience. The therapeutic measures
that he suggests are usually very simple, in the majority of cases
quite rational, though, of course, there are many superstitions among
them; but Ardern always furnished a number of suggestions from which
to choose. He must have been an expert operator, and had excellent
success in the treatment of diseases of the rectum. He seems to have
been the first operator who made statistics of his cases, and was
quite as proud as any modern surgeon, of the large numbers that he had
operated on, which he gives very exactly. He was the inventor of a new
clyster apparatus.

Daremberg