r, because it shows the many subjects that were occupying
physicians' minds at that time. He treats of dropsy, rheumatism, under
which occur the terms coryza and catarrh (the flowing diseases),
icterus, phthisis (he calls the tuberculosis, tysiken), apoplexy,
epilepsy, frenzy, lethargy, fallen palate, cough, shortness of breath,
lung abscess, hemorrhage, blood-spitting, liver abscess, hardening of
the spleen, affections of the kidney, bloody urine, diabetes,
incontinence of urine, dysuria, strangury, gonorrhea, and involuntary
seminal emissions--all these terms are quoted directly from Pagel's
account of his work; the original is not available in this country.

JOHN ARDERN

In English-speaking countries of course we are interested in what was
done by Englishmen at this time. Fortunately we have the record of one
great English surgeon of the period worthy to be placed beside even the
writers already mentioned. This is John Ardern, whose name is probably a
modification of the more familiar Arden, whose career well deserves
attention. I have given a sketch of his work in "The Popes and
Science."[22] He was educated at Montpellier, and practised 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 about the end of the century, was in London. He is the chief
representative of English surgery during the Middle Ages. His
"Practica," 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 careful 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 clyst