ghly a great writer on surgery did his work at the beginning of
the fourteenth century. Gurlt, in his "History of Surgery," has given
over forty pages, much of it small type, with regard to Mondeville,
because of the special interest there is in his writing.[20]

His life is of particular interest for other reasons besides his
subsequent success as a surgeon. He was another of the university men of
this time who wandered far for opportunities in education. Though born
in the north of France and receiving his preliminary education there, he
made his medical studies towards the end of the thirteenth century under
Theodoric in Italy. Afterwards he studied medicine in Montpellier and
surgery in Paris. Later he gave at least one course of lectures at
Montpellier himself and a series of lectures in Paris, attracting to
both universities during his professorship a crowd of students from
every part of Europe. One of his teachers at Paris had been his
compatriot, Jean Pitard, the surgeon of Philippe le Bel, of whom he
speaks as "most skilful and expert in the art of surgery," and it was
doubtless to Pitard's friendship that he owed his appointment as one of
the four surgeons and three physicians who accompanied the King into
Flanders.

Besides his lectures, Mondeville had a large consultant practice and
also had to accompany the King on his campaigns. This made it extremely
difficult for him to keep continuously at the writing of his book. It
was delayed in spite of his good intentions, and we have the picture
that is so familiar in the modern time of a busy man trying to steal or
make time for his writing. Unfortunately, in addition to other
obstacles, Mondeville showed probably before he was forty the first
symptoms of a serious pulmonary disease, presumably tuberculosis. He
bravely fought it and went on with his work. As his end approached he
sketched in lightly what he had hoped to treat much more formally, and
then turned to what was to have been the last chapter of his book, the
Antidotarium or suggestions of practical remedies against diseases of
various kinds because his students and physician friends were urging him
to complete this portion for them. We of the modern time are much less
interested in that than we would have been in some of the portions of
the work that Mondeville neglected in order to provide therapeutic hints
for his disciples. But then the students and young physicians have
always clamored for the pra