Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 8, 2025
Nicaise has emphasized the principles which guided Guy de Chauliac in the choice and interpretation of his authorities by a quotation from Guy himself, which is so different in its tone from what is usually supposed to have been the attitude of mind of the men of science of the time that it would be well for all those who want to understand the Middle Ages better to have it near them.
He knows, above all, how to choose what is best in everything." Verneuil, in his "Conférence sur Les Chirurgiens Érudits," says, "The services rendered by the 'Great Surgery' were immense; by it there commenced for France an era of splendor. It is with justice, then, that posterity has decreed to Guy de Chauliac the title of Father of French surgery."
Chauliac is particularly emphatic in his insistence on not permitting alimentary materials to remain in cavities, and suggests that if cavities between the teeth tend to retain food material they should even be filed in such a way as to prevent these accumulations. His directions for cleansing the teeth were rather detailed.
Toulouse was more famous for law, however, than for medicine, and after a time Chauliac sought Montpellier to complete his medical studies.
They were encyclopedic in intellect and gathered all kinds of information without discrimination, is a very common criticism of medieval writers. No one can say this of Chauliac, however, and, above all, he was no respecter of authority, merely for the sake of authority. His criticism of John of Gaddesden's book shows that the blind following of those who had gone before was his special bête noir.
For some people it may be a source of surprise that Chauliac should have had the intellectual training to enable him to accomplish such judicious work in his specialty. Many people will be apt to assume that he accomplished what he did in spite of his training, genius succeeding even in an unfavorable environment, and notwithstanding educational disadvantages.
For this reason this marvellous chapter in the history of surgery is a warning as well as a startling record of a marvellous epoch of human progress. One of the most interesting characters in the history of medieval medicine, and undoubtedly the most important and significant of these Old-Time Makers of Medicine, is Guy de Chauliac.
Of course Guy de Chauliac would not have been able to operate so freely on hernia and suggest, following his own experience, methods of treatment of penetrating wounds of the abdomen only that he had learned the lessons of antiseptic surgery which had been gradually developed among the great surgeons of Italy during the preceding century.
Guy of Chauliac, whose innovations in surgery reestablished that science on a firm basis, was not only one of the most cultured, but also the most practical surgeon of his time.
After receiving his degree of Doctor of Medicine at Montpellier Chauliac went, as we have said, to Bologna. Here he attracted the attention and received the special instruction of Bertruccio, who was attracting students from all over Europe at this time and was making some excellent demonstrations in anatomy, employing human dissections very freely.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking