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Hernia was Chauliac's specialty, and in it his surgical judgment is admirable. Mondeville before his time did not hesitate to say that many operations for hernia were done not for the benefit of the patient, but for the benefit of the surgeon, a very striking anticipation of remarks that one sometimes hears even at the present time. Chauliac discussed operations for hernia very conservatively.
How well the tradition created by Mondino continued at the university will be best understood from what we know of Guy de Chauliac's visit to the medical school here about the middle of the century. The great French surgeon tells us that he came to Bologna to study anatomy under the direction of Mondino's successor, Bertruccius.
Guy de Chauliac's life is modern in nearly every phase. He was educated in a little town of the south of France, made his medical studies at Montpellier, and then went on a journey of hundreds of miles into Italy, in order to make his post-graduate studies. Italy occupied the place in science at that time that Germany has taken during the nineteenth century.
If to this account of his professional career it be added that Chauliac's personality is, if possible, more interesting than his surgical accomplishment, some idea of the significance of the life of the great father of modern surgery will be realized.
The more one reads of Chauliac's work the less is one surprised at the estimation in which he has been held wherever known. It would not be hard to add a further sheaf of compliments to those collected by Nicaise. Modern writers on the history of medicine have all been enthusiastic in their admiration of him, just in proportion to the thoroughness of their acquaintance with him.
Portal, in his "History of Anatomy and Surgery," says, "Finally, it may be averred that Guy de Chauliac said nearly everything which modern surgeons say, and that his work is of infinite price but unfortunately too little read, too little pondered." Malgaigne declares Chauliac's "Chirurgia Magna" to be "a masterpiece of learned and luminous writing."
Already even in Chauliac's practice, however, some of the finer elements of the technique that made surgery antiseptic to a marked degree, if not positively aseptic in many cases, were not being emphasized as they were by his predecessors, and there was a beginning of surgical meddlesomeness reasserting itself.
Nicaise succeeded in placing 34 complete manuscripts of the "Great Surgery": 22 of these are in Latin, 4 are in French, 3 are in English, 2 only in Provençal, though that was the language spoken in the region where much of Chauliac's life was passed, and one each in Italian, in Low Dutch, and in Hebrew.
There are few centuries in history that can show the existence of so many men whose work was to have an enduring influence for all the after time as this upon which Chauliac's career shed so bright a light.
Chauliac did not think much of him, though his reason for his dislike of him will probably be somewhat startling to those who assume that the men of the Middle Ages always clung servilely to authority. Chauliac's objection to Gaddesden's book is that he merely repeats his masters and does not dare to think for himself.
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