An elaborate discussion of the subject of hernia is given under the title "De relaxatione siphac et ruptura" (f. 280c)—siphac being the Arabian name for the peritoneum. Gilbert tells us the siphac is sometimes relaxed, sometimes ruptured (crepatur?) and sometimes inflated. He had seen a large rupture (crepatura) in which it was impossible to restore the intestines to the cavity of the abdomen in consequence of the presence in them of large hard masses of fecal matter, which no treatment proved adequate to remove, and which finally occasioned the death of the patient. Rupture of the siphac is most frequently the result of accident, jumping, straining in lifting or carrying heavy weights, or in efforts at defecation, or of shouting in boys or persons of advanced age, or even in excessive weeping, etc. It is distinguished from hernia by the fact that in hernia pain is felt in the testicle, radiating to the kidneys, while in rupture of the siphac a swelling on one side of the pubes extends into the scrotum, where it produces a tumor not involving the testicle. Rupture of the siphac, he says, is a lesion of the organs of nutrition, hernia a disease of the organs of generation. Accordingly, in the pathology of Gilbert, the term hernia is applied to hydrocele, orchitis and other diseases of the testicle, and not, as with us to protrusions of the viscera through the walls of their cavities.
In young persons, he tells us, recent ruptures of the siphac may be cured by appropriate treatment. The patient is to be laid upon his back, the hips raised, the intestines restored to the abdominal cavity and the opening of exit dressed with a plaster of exsiccative and consolidating remedies, of which he furnishes a long and diversified catalogue. He is also to avoid religiously all exercise or motion, all anger, clamor, coughing, sneezing, equitation, cohabitation, etc., and to lie with his feet elevated for forty days, until the rupture (crepatura) is consolidated. The bowels are to be kept soluble by enemata or appropriate medicines, and the diet should be selected so as to avoid constipation and flatulence. A bandage or truss (bracale vel colligar) made of silk and well fitted to the patient is also highly recommended. If the patient is a boy, cakes (crispelle?) of consolida major mixed with the yolk of eggs should be administered, one each day for nine days before the wane of the moon. If, however, the rupture is large in either a boy or an adult, and of long standing, whether the intestine descends into the scrotum or not, operation, either by incision or by the cautery offers the only hope of relief. Singularly enough too, while Roger devotes to the operation for the cure of hernia nearly half a page of his text, Gilbert dismisses the whole subject in a single sentence, as follows:
Scindatur igitur totus exitus super hac cute exteriori cum carne fissa, et uatur y fac cum file serice et acu quadrata. Deinde persequere ut in exitu intestini per vulnus superius demonstratum est (f. 281d).
Turning now to the title "De hernia" (f. 289b), Gilbert tells us "Swelling (inflatio) of the testicles is due sometimes to humors trickling down upon them (rheumatizantibus), sometimes to abscess, or to gaseous collections (ventositate), and sometimes to escape of the intestines through rupture of the siphac." He adds also: "Some doubt the propriety of using the term hernia for an inflation. On this point magister Rn says: There is a certain chronic and inveterate tumor of the testicles, which is never cured except by means of surgery, as e.g., hernia. For hernia is an affection common to the scrotum and the testicles."
The apparent confusion between these two passages is easily relieved by the explanation that inguinal or other herniae not extending into the scrotum are called by Gilbert ruptures of the siphac, but scrotal hernia is classed with other troubles located in the scrotum as hernia. Accordingly hernia, with Gilbert, includes not only scrotal hernia, but also hydrocele, orchitis, tumors of the testicles, etc. This is apparent, too, in his treatment of hernia, which consists usually in the employment of various poultices and ointments, bleeding from the saphena, cups over the kidneys, etc., though hydrocele is tapped and a seton inserted. If the testicle itself is "putrid," it should be removed; otherwise it is left. It may be remarked en passant that the surgeons of medieval times, in their desire for thoroughness, often displayed very little respect to what Baas calls "the root of humanity."
We will terminate our hasty review of diseases discussed in the Compendium by an abstract of Gilbert's views on vesical calculus and its treatment, which cover more than fifteen pages of his work.
Stone and gravel arise from various viscous superfluities in the kidneys and bladder, which occasion difficulty in micturition. Stone is produced by the action of heat upon viscous moisture, sublimating the volatile elements and condensing the denser portions. Putrefication of stone in the bladder is the result of three causes, viz., consuming heat, viscous matter and stricture of the meatus. For consuming heat acting on viscous material retained by reason of stricture of the meatus, by long action dries up, coagulates and hardens the moisture. This is particularly manifest in boys who have a constricted meatus.
Stones are thus generated not only in the kidneys and bladder, but also even in the stomach and the intestines, whence they are ejected by vomiting or in the stools. Indeed they may also be found occasionally in the lungs, the joints and other places. They are comparatively rare in women, in consequence of the shortness of the urethra and the size of their meatus.
Sometimes calculi occur in the bladder, sometimes in one kidney and occasionally in both kidneys. The symptoms produced by their presence vary in accordance with the situation of the concretion. If the stone is in the kidney, the foot of the side affected is numb (stupidus), the spine on the affected side is sore and there is difficulty of micturition and considerable gravelly sediment in the urine. If the stone is increasing in size, the quantity of sediment also increases, but if the stone is fully formed and confirmed, the amount of sediment decreases daily, and the urine becomes milky both in the kidneys and the bladder. A stone in the bladder occasions very similar symptoms, together with pain in the peritoneum and pubes, dysuria and strangury, and sometimes the appearance of blood and flocculi (trumbos?) in the urine. Patients suffering from vesical calculus are always constipated, and the dysuria may increase to the degree called furia, a condition not without some danger.
Three things are necessary in the cure of stone, viz., a spare and simple diet, the use of diuretics and a moderate amount of exercise. It should, however, be remarked that confirmed stone is rarely or never cured, except by a surgical operation.... If a boy has a clear and watery urine after it has been sandy, if he frequently scratches his foot, has involuntary erections and finally obstruction in micturition, I say that he has a stone in the neck of his bladder. If now he be laid upon his back with his feet well elevated, and his whole body be well shaken, if there is a stone present it is possible that it may fall to the fundus of the bladder. Afterwards direct the boy to bear down (ut exprimat se) and try to make water. If this treatment turns out in accordance with your theory, the urine necessarily escapes and your idea and treatment are confirmed. If, however, the urine not escape, let the boy be shaken vigorously a second time. If this too fails and strangury ensues, it will be necessary to resort to the use of a sound or catheter (argaliam), so that when the stone is pushed away from the neck of the bladder the passage may be opened and the urine may flow out. It may be possible too that no stone exists, but the urethra is obstructed or closed by pure coagulated blood. Perhaps there may have been a wound of the bladder, although no external haemorrhage has appeared, but the blood coagulating gradually in the bladder has occasioned an obstruction or narrowing of the urinary passage. Or possibly the blood from a renal haemorrhage has descended into the bladder and obstructs the urethra. Hence I say that the sound is useful in these cases where the urethra is obstructed by blood or gross humors. Examination should also be made as to whether a fleshy body exists in the bladder, as the result of some wound. This condition is manifest if, on the introduction of the sound, the urine flows out promptly. I once saw a man suffering from this condition, who complained of severe pain in the urinary passage as I was introducing the sound, and I recognized that there were wounds in the same part, for as soon as these were touched by the sound the urine began to flow, followed soon after by a little blood and fleshy particles.... So far as the operation of physicians is concerned, it is necessary only to be certain of the fact that obstruction to the passage of urine depends upon no other cause than stone or the presence of coagulated blood (f. 271).
Gilbert's medical treatment of vesical calculus consists generally in the administration of diuretics and lithontriptics and the local application of poultices, plasters and inunctions of various kinds. Of the lithontriptics, certain combinations, characterized by famous names or notable historical origin, are evident favorites. Among this class we read of the Philoantropos major and minor, the Justinum, the Usina "approved by many wise men of Babylon and Constantinople," the Lithontripon and the "Pulvis Eugenii pape," with numerous others.
Rather curiously and suggestively no mention is made in this immediate connection of the technique of lithotomy. On a later page, however (f. 309a), we find a chapter entitled "De cura lapidis per cyrurgiam," in which Gilbert writes:
"Mark here a chapter on the cure of stone in the bladder by means of surgery, which we have omitted above. Accordingly, to determine whether a stone exists in the bladder, let the patient take a warm bath. Then let him be placed with his buttocks elevated, and, having inserted into the anus two fingers of the right hand, press the fist of the left hand deeply above the pubes and lift and draw the entire bladder upward. If you find anything hard and heavy, it is manifest that there is a stone in the bladder. If the body feels soft and fleshy, it is a fleshy excrescence (carnositas), which impedes the flow of urine. Now, if the stone is located in the neck of the bladder and you wish to force it to the fundus: after the use of fomentations and inunctions, inject through a syringe (siringa) some petroleum, and after a short interval pass the syringe again up to the neck of the bladder and cautiously and gently push the stone away from the neck to the fundus. Or, which is safer and better, having used the preceding fomentations and inunctions, and having assured yourself that there is a stone in the bladder, introduce your fingers into the anus and compress the neck of the bladder with the fist of the left hand above the pubes, and cautiously remove the stone and guide it to the fundus. But if you wish to extract the stone, let a spare diet precede the operation, and let the patient lie abed for a couple of days with very little food. On the third day introduce the fingers into the anus as before, and draw down the stone into the neck of the bladder. Then make your incision lengthwise in the fontanel, the width of two fingers above the anus, and extract the stone. For nine days after the operation let the patient use, morning and evening, fomentations of branca (acanthus mollis), paritaria (pellitery) and malva (mallows). A bit of tow (stupa) moistened with the yolk of egg in winter, and with both the yolk and white of egg in summer, is to be placed over the wound. Proud flesh, which often springs up near a wound in the neck of the bladder, should be removed by the knife (rasorio), and two or three sutures inserted. The wound is then to be treated like other wounds. It should be remarked, however, that if the stone is very large, it should be simply pushed up to the fundus of the bladder and left there, and no effort should be made to extract it."
This description of the diagnosis of stone and of the operation of lithotomy is copied almost literally from Roger of Parma.
Sufficient (perhaps more than enough) has been written to give the reader a fair idea of the general character of Gilbert's "Compendium Medicine."
A few words may be added with reference to the proper place of the work in our medical literature.
It is not difficult, of course, to select from the Compendium a charm or two, a few impossible etymologies and a few silly statements, to display these with a witty emphasis and to draw therefrom the easy conclusion that the book is a mass of crass superstition and absurd nonsense. This, however, is not criticism. It is mere caricature.
To compare the work with the teachings of modern medicine is not only to expect of the writer a miraculous prescience, but to minimize the advances of medical science within the last seven hundred years.
Even Freind and Sprengel, admirable historians, though more thoughtful and judicious in their criticisms, seem for the moment to have forgotten or overlooked the true character of the Compendium.
Freind says:
"I believe we may even say with justice that he (Gilbert) has written as well as any of his contemporaries of other nations, and has merely followed their example in borrowing very largely from the Arabians," and Sprengel writes: "Here and there, though only very rarely, the author offers some remarks of his own, which merit special attention."
Now, what precisely is Gilbert's Compendium designed to be? In the words of its author it is
"A book of general and special diseases, selected and extracted from the writings of all authors and the practice of the professors (magistrorum), edited by Gilbert of England and entitled a Compendium of Medicine."
and a few pages later he adds:
"It is our habit to select the best sayings of the best authorities, and where any doubt exists, to insert the different opinions, so that each reader may choose for himself what he prefers to maintain."
The author does not claim for his work any considerable originality, but presents it as a compendium proper of the teachings of other writers. Naturally his own part in the book is not obtruded upon our notice.
Now the desiderata of such a compendium are:
1. That it shall be based upon the best attainable authorities.
2. That these authorities shall be accurately represented.
3. That the compendium shall be reasonably comprehensive.
In neither of these respects is the compendium of Gilbert liable, I think, to adverse criticism.
The book is, undoubtedly, the work of a famous and strictly orthodox physician, possessed of exceptional education in the science of his day, a man of wide reading, broadened by extensive travel and endowed with the knowledge acquired by a long experience, honest, truthful and simple minded, yet not uncritical in regard to novelties, firm in his own opinions but not arrogant, sympathetic, possessed of a high sense of professional honor, a firm believer in authority and therefore credulous, superstitious after the manner of his age, yet harboring, too, a germ of that healthy skepticism which Roger Bacon, his great contemporary, developed and illustrated.
I believe, therefore, that we may justly award to the medical pages of the Compendium not only the rather negative praise of being written as well as the work of any of Gilbert's contemporaries, but the more positive credit of being thoroughly abreast of the medical science of its age and country, an "Abstract and brief chronicle of the time."
The surgical chapters of the work are unique in a compendium of medicine, and merit even more favorable criticism.
The discouragement of the practice of medicine and surgery on the part of ecclesiastics by the popes and church councils of the twelfth century, culminating in the decree of Pope Innocent III in 1215, which forbade the participation of the higher clergy in any operation involving the shedding of blood (Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine); the relatively scanty supply of educated lay physicians and surgeons, and finally the pride and inertia of the lay physicians themselves; all these combined to relegate surgery in the thirteenth century to the hands of a class of ignorant and unconscionable empirics, whose rash activity shed a baleful light upon the art of surgery itself. As a natural result the practice of this art drifted into an impasse, from which the organization of the barber-surgeons seemed the only logical means of escape.
The earliest evidence of the public surgical activity of the barbers, as a class, is found, I believe, in Joinville's Chronicle of the Crusade of St. Louis (Louis IX) in the year 1250. According to Malgaigne, no trustworthy evidence of any organization of the barbers of Paris is available before 1301, and the fraternity was not chartered until 1427, under Charles VII. The barbers of London are noticed in 1308, and they received their charter from Edward IV in 1462. The parallel lines upon which the confraternities of the two cities developed is very noticeable—making due allowance for Gallic enthusiasm and bitterness.
Lanfranchi, the great surgeon of Paris, about the year 1300 is moved to write as follows:
"Why, in God's name, in our days is there such a great difference between the physician and the surgeon? The physicians have abandoned operative procedures to the laity, either, as some say, because they disdain to operate with their hands, or rather, as I think, because they do not know how to perform operations. Indeed, this abuse is so inveterate that the common people look upon it as impossible for the same person to understand both surgery and medicine. It ought, however, to be understood that no one can be a good physician who has no idea of surgical operations, and that a surgeon is nothing if ignorant of medicine. In a word, one must be familiar with both departments of medicine."
Now Gilbert by the incorporation of many chapters on surgery in his Compendium inculcates practically the same idea more than fifty years before Lanfranchi, and may claim to be the earliest representative of surgical teaching in England. Malgaigne, indeed, does not include his name in the admirable sketch of medieval surgery with which he introduces his edition of the works of Ambroise Pare, and says Gilbert was no more a surgeon than Bernard Gordon. This is in a certain sense true. Gilbert was certainly not an operative surgeon. But it needs only a very superficial comparison of the Compendium of Gilbert with the Lilium Medicinae of Gordon to establish the fact that the books are entirely unlike. Indeed, it may be truthfully said that Gordon's work does not contain a single chapter on surgery proper. His cases involving surgical assistance are turned over at once, and with little or no discussion, to those whom he calls "restauratores" or "chirurgi," and his own responsibility thereupon ends.
We have no historical facts which demonstrate that Gilbert's Compendium exercised any considerable influence upon the development of surgery in England, but when we consider the depressed condition of both medicine and surgery in his day, we should certainly emphasize the clearness of vision which led our author to indicate the natural association of these two departments of the healing art, and the assistance which each lends to the other.
Footnote 5: (return)Haeser says that this MS. of Roger's "Chirurgia," made by Guido Arenitensium, was discovered by Puccinoti in the Magliabechian library, and that an old Italian translation of the same work is also found there. The latter was the work of a certain Bartollomeo.
The text used to represent Roger in the present paper is that published by De Renzi (Collectio Salernitana, tom. II, pp. 426-493) and entitled "Rogerii, Medici Celeberrimi Chirurgia." It is really the text published originally in the "Collectio Chirurgica Veneta" of 1546, of which the preface says:
"His acceserunt Rogerii ac Guil. Saliceti chirurgiae, quarum prior quibusdam decorata adnotationibus nunc primum in lucem exit, etc.," and adds further on:
"Addidimus etiam quasdam in Rogerium veluti explanationes, in antiquissimo codice inventas, et ab ipso fortasse Rolando factas." While I may recognize gratefully the surgical enthusiasm which led the editor to the publication of these "veluti explanationes," for my present purpose he would have earned more grateful recognition if he had left them unprinted. As the text now stands it is merely a garbled edition of the Rolandina. However, it is the best representative of the "Chirurgia" of Roger at present available. See De Renzi, op. cit., p. 425.
Footnote 6: (return)This apparent anachronism carries us back to the history of the mythical Island of Brazil, which appeared upon our charts as late as the middle of the 19th century.
Footnote 7: (return)In his chapter on embryology (f. 304c) Gilbert describes the lrili vein as follows: "The embryo is nourished by means of the lrili or lrineli vein, which does not exist in man. This vein has its origin in the liver and divides into two branches. Of these the superior branch bifurcates, and one of its branches goes to the right breast, the other to the left, conveying blood from the liver. This blood in the breast is bleached white (dealbatur) like milk, and forms the nourishment of the infant. The inferior branch of the lrili vein also bifurcates, sending one of its branches to the right cornu of the uterus, the other to the left. These vessels carry blood into the cotyledons, whence it is transmitted to the fetus and digested by its digestive faculty."
Footnote 9: (return)It is at least interesting to know that small-pox is said to have made its first appearance in England in 1241.
Footnote 10: (return)It is interesting to observe how the Latin discus developed dichotomously into the English "dish" and the German "Tisch." The former is doubtless the meaning of the word in this place.