at similarly. Professor Clifford Allbutt is quite
emphatic in this matter and Professor Osler is on record to the same
effect. Following Theodoric, William of Salicet did much to get away
from the Arabic abuse of the cautery and brought the knife back to its
proper place again as the ideal surgical instrument. Unlike those who
had written before him, William quoted very little from preceding
writers. Whenever he quotes his contemporaries it is in order to
criticise them. He depended on his own experience and considered that it
was only what he had actually learned from experience that he should
publish for the benefit of others.

A very good idea of the sort of surgery that William of Salicet
practised may be obtained even from the beginning of the first chapter
of his first book. This is all with regard to surgery of the head. He
begins with the treatment of hydrocephalus or, as he calls it, "water
collected in the heads of children newly born." He rejects opening of
the head by an incision because of the danger of it. In a number of
cases, however, he had had success by puncturing the scalp and membranes
with a cautery, though but a very small opening was made and the fluid
was allowed to escape only drop by drop. He then takes up eye diseases,
a department of surgery rather well developed at that time, as can be
seen from our account of the work of Pope John XXI as an
ophthalmologist during the thirteenth century. See _Ophthalmology_
(January, 1909), reprinted in "Catholic Churchmen in Science,"
Philadelphia, The Dolphin Press, 1909.

William devotes six chapters to the diseases of the eyes and the
eyelids. Then there are two chapters on affections of the ears. Foreign
bodies and an accumulation of ear wax are removed by means of
instruments. A polyp is either cut off or its pedicle bound with a
ligature, and it is allowed to shrivel. The next chapter is on the nose.
Nasal polyps were to be grasped with a sharp tenaculum, _cum tenacillis
acutis_, and either wholly or partially extracted. Ranula was treated by
being lifted well forward by means of a sharp iron hook and then split
with a razor. It is evident that the tendency of these to fill up again
was recognized, and accordingly it was recommended that vitriol powder,
or alum with salt, be placed in the cavity for a time after evacuation
in order to produce adhesive inflammation.

In the same chapter on the mouth one finds that William did not hesitate
to perfor