History of Surgery

In 1536, at the siege of Turin, French military surgeon Ambroise Paré changed surgical history. At that time, it was the custom to treat gunshot wounds by pouring boiling oil into them, often without removing the fragment or bullet. Paré, having run out of this cauterizing mixture, was forced to use a non-abrasive digestive to treat some of his wounded patients. This surgical procedure ultimately proved that gunshot wounds should not be treated by cauterization. Gunpowder weapons, however, had been in use for more than two centuries before Pare's discovery. During this time undoubtedly many victims wounded with gunshot must have suffered through cauterization. This has given rise to the belief among modern medical historians that the tradition of treating gunshot wounds which Paré corrected was formed and developed during the late Middle Ages. This article takes an opposing viewpoint to that theory. Using both late medieval surgical manuals and examples of gunshot wound treatmen...

Medicine and Healing in the Premodern West traces the history of medicine and medical practice from Ancient Egypt through to the end of the Middle Ages. Featuring nearly one hundred primary documents and images, this book introduces readers to the words and ideas of men and women from across Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, from prominent physicians to humble healers. Each of the book’s ten chronological and thematic chapters is given a significant historical introduction, in which each primary source is described in its original context. Many of the included source texts are newly translated by the editor, some of them appearing in English for the first time.

Capparoni, scoprirà nel 1910 nella Biblioteca Casanatense di Roma: un manoscritto della seconda metà del 1200 contenente testi di medicina e chirurgia dei più celebri autori del Medioevo quali Ruggero di Frugardo, Albucasis, Bingezla, Rhazes, Gentile da Foligno. Questo codice ha, negli spazi bianchi, annotazioni di colui che ne era il proprietario, la sua firma e la data del 1384. Chi lo possedeva era un certo Maestro Berardo di Maestro Cambio di Poggio di Croce, il primo chirurgo preciano documentalmente conosciuto" [G. F. CRUCIANI, La chirurgia preciana, pp. 93-96, in A. PIERETTI, (a cura di) Presenze filosofiche in Umbria II. Dal Medioevo all'età contemporanea, Milano, Mimesis, 2012].

In October 1548, Leonardo Fioravanti, a thirty-year old undistinguished surgeon from Bologna, faced a crisis moment in his life. A university dropout who had become disenchanted with traditional medicine, he had been practicing surgery for fifteen years and his career was at a standstill. Yet he hungered for fame. So Fioravanti did what other restless individuals of the Renaissance did: he went out "into the world" to seek new secrets and, to employ a modern manner of speaking, to find himself. As he recalled in his autobiography, published as part of his book, Treasury of Human Life, "I left my home sweet home, Bologna, solely with the intention of traveling throughout the world in order to gain knowledge of natural philosophy." His search took him wandering all over the Mediterranean world, "by land and by sea" [as he put it], learning secrets from empirics, distillers, shepherds, farmers, and surgeons. We have no way of knowing how competent a surgeon Fioravanti was when he left Bologna. Doubtless, as he admits, he had much to learn. But of one thing we can be certain: that

This paper analyses evidence for the practice of surgery, as opposed to its theory, in the Islamic Middle East at the end of the first millennium. The inclusion in formal Arabic medical treatises of complex or invasive surgical procedures is compared with the lack of evidence for their actual performance, as well as with statements to the effect that such techniques were unknown at that time or should be avoided. Areas in which there is greater evidence of the practice of surgery-such as the removal of superficial growths and the treatment of eye diseases-are also discussed. In particular, the paper focuses upon treatises by 'Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (known to Europeans as Albucasis), Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya' al-Razi (Rhazes), 'All ibn al-'Abbas al-Majus"i (Haly Abbas), and Ibn Sina (Avicenna).

Aslında cerrahinin tarihçesi ile tıbbın tarihçesini birbirinden ayrı düşünmek pek mümkün değildir. İnsanlık tarihi boyunca hastalıklar ya da yaralanmalar yaşamla içiçe olmuş, insanlar da bunlara yönelik
çeşitli çözüm yöntemleri geliştirmek durumunda kalmışlardır.
Ayrıntılı bilgi ve belgeler bulunmasa da cerrahinin ilk örneklerinin yabancı cisim ve küçük kitlelerin çıkarılması, ülserlerin koterize edilmesi gibi küçük cerrahi işlemler ya da travma cerrahisi olduğu söylenebilir. En eski büyük cerrahi işlem ise ilk örnekleri MÖ 10.000-5.000 arasına tarihlenen trepanasyondur (kafatasından bir parça kemik çıkartılması).
Arkeolojik bulgulara göre trepanasyon yapılan insanlar işlem sonrasında ölmemişler ve yaşamlarını devam ettirmişlerdir. Bu kafataslarında
herhangi bir hastalık belirtisi ya da travma izi görülmediği için, trepanasyonun büyüsel bir işlem amacıyla ya da mental bir sorun için uygulandığı var sayılmaktadır.

The book furnishes a unique insight into the world of meanings and emotions associated with hospital life by including narratives from both patients and caregivers. The story is told in a dozen episodes which illustrate the transformation of hospitals from  houses of mercy to tools of confinement, from dwellings of rehabilitation to spaces of clinical teaching and research, from rooms for birthing and dying to institutions of science and technology. From ancient Greece to the era of AIDS, the book  features key hospitals , covering the most important themes in the development of medicine and therapeutics.

In this clinical study hyperbaric ropivacaine in spinal anaesthesia for lower limb and hip surgery was evaluated and results obtained were compared with those using hyperbaric bupivacaine. Methodology: Two hundred patients scheduled for lower limb and hip surgery were randomly divided into two groups of 100 patients each. These patients received a spinal injection of either 3ml (15mg) of 0.5% hyperbaric ropivacaine or 3ml (15mg) of 0.5% hyperbaric bupivacaine using 25G Quincke type spinal needle. The parameters studied were -onset and total duration of sensory block, onset and total duration of motor block, quality of intraoperative anaesthesia, hemodynamic alterations, and any intraoperative and postoperative complications. Results: The mean onset of sensory block (6±1.3min vs. 3±1.1min; p value<0.05) and motor block (13±1.6min vs. 9±1.3min; p value< 0.05) was significantly slower in ropivacaine group as compared to bupivacaine group. The total duration of sensory block was significantly shorter in ropivacaine group (160±12.9min) than in bupivacaine group (260±16.1min; p value <0.05). The mean duration of motor block was also shorter in ropivacaine group compared to bupivacaine group (126±9.2min vs. 174±12.6min; p value<0.05). Conclusion: The quality of anaesthesia was excellent in both the groups. In conclusion, a solution of ropivacaine (hyperbaric) can be used for spinal anaesthesia and is comparable with hyperbaric bupivacaine in terms of quality of block, but has shorter recovery profile.

Now that a fair amount of Anglo-Norman medical literature has been edited (most of it by the Oxford scholar, Tony Hunt), it is possible to give some assessment of the genesis of this unusually early corpus of vernacular medical writing. Like the Anglo-Saxon medical corpus before it, the Anglo-Norman corpus makes a fundamentally Mediterranean system of medicine accessible to readers (and auditors) in the north. In fact, England was one of the biggest markets for southern Italian medicine in the 12th and 13th centuries: of all the Latin medical works circulating in this period, whether new compositions and translations or old classics, England had copies of well over half. Therefore, it becomes of interest to see which of those many works were chosen for translation into the vernacular. Although works of basic therapeutic utility like Roger of Frugardi’s *Chirurgia* and Johannes Platearius’s *Practica brevis* are known in unique copies, the field most represented in Anglo-Norman medical literature is women’s medicine: gynecology and cosmetics. The gynecological texts are all translations of some form or another of the so-called *Trotula* text, which came out of 12th-century Salerno, specifically the *Liber de sinthomatibus mulierum* (Book on Women’s Conditions). Likewise, the two known cosmetics works have clear signs of derivation from southern Italian practices. I hypothesize that these works may have been commissioned by women, who knew of the medical lore coming out of southern Italy through a variety of Norman contacts. Just how new works in “the French of England” interacted with older Anglo-Saxon terminology is an issue still in need of investigation.

a cura di Giuseppe Olmi e Claudia Pancino L'interrogativo intorno al quale ruota il presente contributo è apparentemente semplice: si può scrivere una storia sociale e culturale della sectio in Età Moderna che non predetermini il proprio oggetto, ovvero che non sia una storia regressiva di una disciplina medica -anatomia normale, patologica, medicina legale ecc. -ma che permetta nondimeno di cogliere la genesi di nuove forme di conoscenza sul corpo sano e malato? Una tensione permanente tra separatezza e commistione permea le fonti a proposito dei diversi usi e modalità della sezione cadaverica tra XIV e XVII secolo, ed è poi amplificata dalla pur abbondante ed eccellente storiografia. Come districarli senza adottare partizioni epistemologiche che ne scaturiscono mentre si sviluppano nuove aspettative nel potenziale conoscitivo dell'apertura dei cadaveri e si attenuano le consuetudini disciplinari di origine medievale? Come scrivere, insomma, una storia che resti aderente alla pratica e interroghi le condizioni materiali di produzione del sapere sul corpo?

The thorough study of historical researches that reflect the radical appearance, the gradual formation, but also the multidimensional contribution of medical achievements, as if of their talented inspir-ers deterministically lead to the unhindered expression of irrefutable truths. Multifarious personality, tireless scholar, versed in the diachronic humanistic ideals French Ambroaz Paré was able to confront seemingly insurmountable obstacles: his bad social status, the large financial diiculties, and additionally the unbearable everyday life on the battlefields of the endless conflicts which neither limited his fiery spirit nor put out his unparalleled desire for substantial solidarity and selfless love for all human beings. On the contrary, these parameters forged a magnanimous physiognomy that is reasonably admired for its scientific foundation, the unique inventiveness and the rich authorial activity. Furthermore, the modest doctor barber impressed the mankind by his rare moral mosaic and the unpretentious faith in God. Based on the mentioned facts Pare obtained the universal acceptance of the medical community that awarded him with the superb title of " father of modern surgery ". However all generations constantly pore over his enlightened thoughts and receive valuable material related to surgery, obstetrics, forensic science and pharmacology.

In 1876 Theodor Billroth - the founder of modern scientific surgery - published a book in which he talked about medical education in German universities. It was a profound criticism of the Austrian university system which, within its purported liberal forms, had allowed the entry of "non-German" minorities into higher education. Having relaxed the conditions of entry, Slavic populations, Magyars and Jews had obtained the right to obtain a higher education.
Billroth blamed the reform for the poor results obtained in the final medical examination.  His claiming was that this kind of students should be unable to receive medical education. To exemplify his arguments, he uses the model of the Jewish student:

Such empty-headed strivers, with their purblind eyes, hands like lead, and brains like clay, with a dictionary knowledge and pathetic incompetence, are to be found in large numbers, especially among those poor medical students...They often understand so little German that they can grasp neither the language nor the sense of the questions, and are quite incapable of expressing their thoughts either in German or any other tongue.

Of German and Protestant origin, Billroth had arrived in Vienna in 1867, the same year in which the reform had begun. Considered an elitist and anti-Semitic, the publication of the book caused a great stir and enormous controversy. While the students of German origin supported Billroth, the Jews wanted to oppose defense to these accusations. The authorities accused him of provoking the students and in the newspapers there was more talk about Billroth because of the scandal than because of his work as a surgeon. Although he felt misunderstood, he never deviated from his stand.
This particular story of Billroth is not well known, and will allow us to discuss the issue of anti-Semitism, particularly within universities of German origin after the first half of the nineteenth century.

On Saturday 21 st July 1403 the armies of King Henry IV and the rebel Henry Percy met in battle just north of the town of Shrewsbury. The royal forces were victorious, (Priestley 1979), but during the battle Henry IV's son, Prince Hal, (later to become King Henry V), was wounded in the face by an arrow while leading a charge. Despite the severity of the wound, he continued to fight on refusing to leave, demanding, according to one of his chroniclers, Tito Livio: "Lead me, thus wounded, to the front line so that I may, as a prince should, kindle our fighting men with deeds not words" (Dockray 2007 p.85).

Das Meer als Transportweg für Mensch, Tier und Handelswaren wurde nachweislich bereits in der Antike mit Schiffen befahren. Und schon immer barg dies Gefahren für die Gesundheit. Sei es durch kriegerische Auseinandersetzungen, Wetterkapriolen oder Krankheiten. Mit Hilfe von schriftlichen und archäologischen Überlieferungen gelingt es, zumindest für die Zeit ab dem 16. Jahrhundert gezielte Aussagen zur medizinischen Fürsorge an Bord von Kriegs- und Handelsschiffen zu treffen.

This article examines the treatment of gunshot wounds used in the 16th century from the point of view of modern surgery. Instead of cauterizing the wounds with the aim of destroying the "gunpowder poison" (I.Brunswig, John. da Vigo) came gentle bandages (A.Pare), causing less pain to the wounded. Pare also introduced the ligature of vessels. but combustion method was not also forgotten and became the origin of modern diathermy.

The aim of this paper is to examine the process of transformation of the midwives’ education
in Spain, from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century. With this objective,
the circumstances which determined that midwives were been trained in Colleges of Surgery
are identified and, moreover, the details of this training are described: admission policy,
faculty, duration of studies, exams and midwives’ obligations. As a result, the number of
students who started the first training course of 1790 in the «Real Colegio de Cirugía de San
Carlos de Madrid» was reduced, with a further fall when Pablo Ferrándiz Bendicho
inaugurated the «Cátedra de Partos» on 19 April 1790.
This paper also discusses how the admission for candidates to midwifery education was
tightened in the following years and includes the names of the first qualified midwives, which
may help in future research works in other regions of the country.

El presente trabajo muestra el proceso de transformación de la formación de las matronas en
España, desde finales del siglo xviii a mediados del siglo xix. Para ello se exponen cuáles fueron
las circunstancias que propiciaron que las matronas comenzasen a formarse en los Colegios
de Cirugía, y se analizan los datos sobre dicha formación: requisitos de acceso, profesorado,
duración de los estudios, exámenes y obligaciones adquiridas al obtener el título. Se
apunta, también, el número de alumnas que iniciaron en 1790 en el Real Colegio de Cirugía de
San Carlos el primer curso y como Pablo Ferrándiz Bendicho llevó a cabo la inauguración de
la Cátedra de Partos el 19 de abril de 1790.
Los cambios que, por lo general, fueron endureciendo la admisión de las aspirantes a matronas
durante la existencia del Colegio son puestos de manifiesto a continuación. También se recogen
los nombres de esas primeras matronas tituladas, lo que puede servir de ayuda para futuras
investigaciones sobre la profesión en distintas zonas geográficas.

[Article in English.] Au début du XXe siècle, l’impératif de renforcer et de défendre le gouvernement du Ganden Phodrang motiva les réformes tant médicales que militaires au Tibet. Mobilisant les mémoires de médecins tibétains ainsi que d’autres types de sources, cet article examine la relation entre l’armée du Ganden Phodrang et les deux principales institutions médicales du Lhasa de l’époque : le monastère médical de Chakpori (fondé en 1696) et le Mentsikhang ou « Institut de Médecine et d’Astrologie » (fondé en 1916). Entre 1897 et les années 1940, l’armée recruta progressivement davantage de médecins du Chakpori servant auprès des officiers et dans les campements militaires, tandis qu’en 1938 un effort plus concerté fut fourni afin d’établir un « corps médical » tibétain, en recrutant au Mentsikhang une promotion entière d’étudiants issus des régiments militaires. Cette expansion s’inscrivait dans une tendance mondiale plus large, puisque les armées modernes, de la Grande-Bretagne impériale à la Chine, organisaient des services médicaux et sanitaires avec l’objectif de réduire le nombre de décès parmi les combattants et les non-combattants et de remonter le moral des troupes et des civils. Mais si le contexte militaire des rencontres avec les cultures étrangères influença largement l’évolution de la médecine tibétaine au cours de cette période, l’adoption de techniques étrangères se limita principalement à la vaccination jennérienne, tandis que les techniques tibétaines pertinentes, notamment le traitement des blessures, la chirurgie de la cataracte et la divination de la « victoire au combat » (g.yul rgyal) recevaient un nouvel éclairage. Les initiatives du gouvernement du Ganden Phodrang visant à relier ses institutions médicales et militaires reflètent une volonté de renforcer la base bouddhique de sa gouvernance et d’encourager la coopération entre les segments laïcs et monastiques de la société.

Günümüze kadar ulaşan bazı veriler Antik Çağ’da tedavi konusunda bizi bilgilendirmektedir. Roma Dönemi’nde, köleleri, saray mensuplarını, imparatorları, asker ve gladyatörleri ve belediyeler tarafından görevlendirilerek yoksulları tedavi eden ve değişik tedavi yöntemleri uygulayan ayrı hekimler vardı. Tedavinin gerçekleştirildiği sağlıkla ilişkili mekânlardan ilk akla gelenler, Asklepieionlar ile hamam ve kaplıca gibi su tedavisi mekânlarıdır. Su tedavisi mekânları ve Asklepieionlarda psikoterapi, hidroterapi ve fizik tedavi yöntemleri uygulansa da, cerrahiyi de içeren asıl tıbbi müdahaleler hekim evleri ya da muayenehanelerinde ve valetudinarium denilen askeri hastanelerde gerçekleştiriliyordu. Sivil hastane fikri Roma Dönemi’nde henüz uygulanmasa da, askerler, valetudinariumlarda tedavi edilebiliyordu. Roma Dönemi’nde tedavinin şekli ve yeri, hastanın sosyal seviyesine göre değişmekteydi. Son yıllarda Tekirdağ’da Heraion Teikhos, Gaziantep’te Zeugma ve Batı Anadolu’da bazı kazılar Anadolu’nun tıp ve cerrahi tarihi açısından önemini, antropolojik ve arkeolojik verilerle ortaya koymaktadır. Kazıları 1998 ile 2006 yılları arasında, Yrd. Doç. Dr. Ahmet Yaraş başkanlığında sürdürülmüş ama ne yazık ki günümüzde Yortanlı sulama göleti altında bırakılmış olan Allianoi’da doğal sıcak su tedavisinin uygulandığı kaplıca, eczayla ilişkili buluntu ve mekânlar, cerrahi müdahaleyi kanıtlayan zengin buluntular, hastane yapısı ve sağlık kültüne ilişkin buluntular ele geçmiştir. Tıp aleti yönünden en az Pompeii kadar zengin olan Allianoi’da ele geçen yüzlerce tıp aleti ve hastane yapısı, Anadolu’nun şimdiye kadar tespit edilen tıp tarihi açısından en önemli yerleşimi olduğunu kanıtlamaktadır.

A certain architectural type of building which can be found in ancient Roman military camps has unanimously been identified as valetudinarium (military hospital). It has long been recognized that in the Roman Empire great advances were made in medical knowledge, and that the best organized medical system in the ancient world was that of the Roman armed forces. For some time it has been known that some of the medicines and medical preparations prescribed by Celsus in his book De Medicina are chemically basically similar to modem ones. In the Roman legionary camp of the legio I Italica in Novae/Bulgaria there is right in the middle of the valetudinarium a sacred precint including votive inscriptions to Roman healing gods. The finds from Novae show besides other archaeological arguments that the traditional identification of the Roman valetudinarium is correct.

"Allianoi is located in Paşa Ilıcası, close to Bergama (Pergamon) in Izmir. Allianoi is under the threat of disappearing by the Yortanlı Dam. In this thesis, surgical tools which were unearthed in Allianoi between years 1998 - 2006 are studied. The surgical instruments of Allianoi provide significant and considerable information about typology and technology of ancient surgical instruments, history of medicine and the relationship between settlement and health. If compared with other contexts Allianoi medical instruments are superior in variations and quantity so they enlighten us about the medical instruments used in Anatolia in terms of type, variation and origin and make an important contribution to quantitative data. This is the first study which has made an inventory of surgical instruments of an Anatolian settlement. In this thesis, first of all, diseases and their methods of treatment in Roman Period are studied and then medical instruments, which were obtained in Allianoi Excavations are classified according to their functions and forms, finally new results are emphasized. The catalogue of 365 items is presented at the end of the thesis.

İzmir ili, Bergama ilçesinin kuzeydoğusunda, Paşa Ilıcası mevkiine konumlandırılan Allianoi, Yortanlı Sulama Barajı’nın gölet alanında kaldığı için yok edilme tehdidi altındadır. Bu tez çalışmasında, 1998 - 2006 yıllarında Allianoi’da yapılan kazılarda bulunan tıp âletleri incelenmiştir. Antik tıp âletlerinin tipolojisi ve teknolojisi, tıp tarihi ve yerleşimin sağlıkla ilişkisi açılarından önemli bilgiler veren Allianoi tıp âletleri, diğer kontekstlerle karşılaştırıldığında, çeşitlilik ve sayı yönlerinden üstün oldukları için, Anadolu tıp âletlerinin, tip, dağılım ve köken sorunlarına da ışık tutmakta, sayısal verilerine katkı sağlamaktadır. Bu çalışma ile ilk kez bir Anadolu yerleşiminin tıp âleti envanteri yapılmıştır. Tez kapsamında, Roma Dönemi’ndeki hastalıklar ve tıbbî müdahale yöntemleri incelenmiş, Allianoi kazılarında ele geçen tıp âletleri hem tipolojik hem de işlevsel açılardan sınıflandırılmış, yeni bulgular vurgulanmış ve değerlendirilen 365 adet eser tez sonunda katalog halinde düzenlenmiştir.  "

This bibliography was prepared in response to a New York Times article that appeared on 23 Nov. 2016 claiming that an "apparent case" of a successful Caesarean section had been found dating from 1337 (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/world/what-in-the-world/a-breakthrough-in-c-section-history-beatrice-of-bourbons-survival-in-1337.html). Debate about the interpretation of the slim evidence for this case will no doubt continue. However, the published study (which appeared in a Czech medical journal) never mentioned the surprisingly rich corpus of scholarly work that had already appeared on the general topic of C-section in the Middle Ages.

This bibliography is meant to capture that work. If you have additions, you can send them to me at [email protected]. I will update this list from time to time.

A question guaranteed to ignite a heated debate amongst medieval archery re-enactors is always: "What kind of war arrows did they use in medieval times?" Did they use barbed arrowheads or bodkin arrowheads? (Pictures 1 and 2) On one Living History website one reenactor states:

We received so many biographies of women neurosurgery leaders for this issue that only a selection could be condensed here. In all of them, the essence of a leader shines through. Many are included as “first” of their country or color or other achievement. All of them are included as outstanding—in clinical, academic, and organized neurosurgery. Two defining features are tenacity and service. When faced with shocking discrimination, or numbing indifference, they ignored it or fought valiantly. When choosing their life’s work, they chose service, often of the most neglected—those with pain, trauma, and disability. These women inspire and point the way to a time when the term “women leaders” as an exception is unnecessary. —Katharine J. Drummond, MD, on behalf of this month’s topic editors

By the fifteenth-century firearms had spread all over Europe, but surgeons had no idea how to cure gunshot wounds. It was generally accepted that high mortality from gunshot wounds could be explained by some kind of 'gunshot poison' entering the body with the bullet, but information and practical advice on managing gunshot wounds varied enormously across Europe. There were no appropriate instructions for such a new kind of wound in the ancient medical tradition and more recent ideas were unevenly distributed. Although known in Germany, Hieronymus Brunschwig's Buch der Wund Artzney (1497) seems to have been unfamiliar in France and instead French surgeons focused on Giovanni da Vigo's La Practique et chirurgie (1542), which was translated into several languages. Ambroise Paré also followed da Vigo, but in the battlefield he had to revise the generally accepted method of gunshot wound treatment. In response to his experiences he proposed a new version of wound care where cauterisation was replaced with a ligature of the vessels and the use of a healing balm dressing. In his treatise Des Playes faicts par haquebutes et autres bastons à feu (1545) he described the main stages of healing and the principles of wound care he finally adopted. As Paré fell out of fashion, the idea of 'gunshot poison' was rejected by the medical authorities, but the technique of cauterising gunshot wounds, abandoned by Paré, was still practiced.

Estudi del procés d'emergència social dels barbers fonamentat en la pràctica quirúrgica i en l'ús de la literatura mèdica en llengua vulgar, a partir de l'edició i exhaustiu comentari de l'inventari de béns 'post mortem' de Joan Vicenç († Barcelona 1464). Posseïa una biblioteca de 12 volums, alguns dels quals miscel·lanis, tots ells en català.

SOMMAIRE
- Une boite de lithotritie périnéale des collections du musée d’histoire de la méde- cine de Lyon (Philippe Lépine)
- Dioptres ancêtres des grands speculums. A propos de deux représentations égyp- tiennes (Richard-Alain Jean)
Numismatique :
- Une médaille anniversaire de la découverte germano-japonaise du salfarsan (Frédé- ric Bonté)
- Un plomb de scellée de la
Courrier des lecteurs
En musardant sur la toile Actus
On recherche
Nouveautés en librairie

Joseph Maclise (1815–91), a gifted surgeon, anatomist, and medical illustrator of mid-19th-century Britain,  left behind a corpus of brilliant, idiosyncratic anatomical images, and opinionated commentaries, but almost no evidence of social interactions or affective relations. Homoerotic desire was heavily policed in Maclise’s time. Given the conditions under which the archive was created (or suppressed, or lost, or shamed into reticence), we can never know with certainty what he intended or felt, or what his readers received—but we do have a rich evidentiary base of visual materials. Using narrative history, close readings of images and texts, detailed comparisons with other illustrated anatomies, and open-ended theoretical and methodological approaches (a mash-up of queer theory, Foucault, gaze theory, genre analysis, and contextualization)—an argument is joined: an image can be a closet and a queer space. Maclise’s drawings, ostensibly designed to contribute to the improvement of medical knowledge, theory, and practice, show good-looking young men and cadaveric bodies in various states of dissection. Penises, testicles, anuses, faces, sensuous hands on skin are crisply rendered in illusionistic perspective, with a highly cultivated aestheticism—often without any relevance to the anatomical topic discussed—and little attention is paid to the female body. In historical context, and from our 21st-century vantage point, the hypothesis of homoerotic investment leads to productive interpretations. This article poses more questions than answers but comes to rest with this: it is plausible and meaningful to take Maclise’s anatomical illustrations, and the figures depicted therein, as queer objects of queer desire.

In 1536, at the siege of Turin, French military surgeon Ambroise Pare changed surgical history. At that time, it was the custom to treat gunshot wounds by pouring boiling oil into them, often without removing the fragment or bullet. Pare, having run out of this cauterizing mixture, was forced to use a non-abrasive digestive to treat some of his wounded patients. This surgical procedure ultimately proved that gunshot wounds should not be treated by cauterization. Gunpowder weapons, however, had been in use for more than two centuries before Pare's discovery. During this time undoubtedly many victims wounded with gunshot must have suffered through cauterization. This has given rise to the belief among modern medical historians that the tradition of treating gunshot wounds which Pare corrected was formed and developed during the late Middle Ages. This article takes an opposing viewpoint to that theory. Using both late medieval surgical manuals and examples of gunshot wound treatment found in chronicles of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it shows instead that those late medieval surgeons who treated gunshot wounds did so in a manner not unlike their treatment of non-gunshot wounds, without cauterization. Moreover, the responsibility for the harsh treatment which Pjlrk altered should instead be laid at the feet of the early sixteenth-century surgeon Giovanni da I Vigo. It was from his popular surgical manual that most surgeons, including Park, had learned incorrectly their treatment of gunshot wounds.

Abstract:  This essay examines the circulation of Gerard of Cremona's twelfth-century Latin translation of the Surgery of al-Zahrawi (Albucasis), a work composed in Arabic in Umayyad Spain around the year 1000.  Entirely invisible for the first half century after its translation, the work began to circulate about the second quarter of the thirteenth century, first in the company of other translations by Gerard, then among other works on surgery, and then on its own. Whereas other surgical texts circulated quite widely in western Europe, up until the fifteenth century Albucasis's work was copied only in Italy and, to a lesser extent, in southern France. This limited circulation connects, I argue, to the particular uses of this text that were at once academic, practical, and 'popular'.  Already heavily illustrated in Arabic, the Latin Surgery elicited even more material and labor investment as Italian and French copyists developed its iconographic character further. At least some of that pictorial investment shows the Surgery being exploited because it contained material found in no other Latin surgical text:  detailed instructions on gynecological and obstetrical surgery, a field in which learned male practitioners were increasingly involved from the late thirteenth century on.
Keywords:  Albucasis (al-Zahrawi); surgery; obstetrics; medical illustrations, elite patronage

Little is known about the role of surgery in pre-modern medical practice in general, and in the lands under Muslim dominance in particular. There is an acknowledged gap between theoretical knowledge and medical practice, but evidence of the latter is difficult to find. Many fundamental questions therefore remain unanswered. For example, was there a division of labour between surgeons and physicians? We are also mostly ignorant about who practiced surgery, the legal context surrounding this practice, and its financial aspects. This article offers an analytical edition of two documents from the Syrian town Hamah dating from 1212/1798, which can help answer some of these questions. They concern a respected and learned physician who also personally performed the removal of bladder stones and was paid well for his services.

Abstract: Viewing the history of science through its objects provides a practical and direct comprehension of its technical-scientific level and social-historical context. This approach is particularly useful in the study of Greek-Roman surgery and tools, highlighting its unrivalled advances over previous proto-medicines. A survey of the instruments asserts the complementarity of medicine and surgery as well as their devising and preparation of medicines by physicians. The tools, the sources for their study and their context illustrate textbooks, provide data on similar medical thought and practice in the whole Roman Empire and on physician’s social status. They testify the existence of funerary medical honours such as heroization, following the example of Asclepius, the patron of Greek-Roman medicine. The discovery of surgical instruments in female tombs also discloses the existence of female medical practitioners. The study of Greek-Roman surgical tools provides an accurate and global view on founding procedures that established Western surgery.

Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit Karl Schuchardt (1901–1985) – dem wohl einflussreichsten Kieferchirurg in der Generation unmittelbar nach Georg Axhausen (1877–1960), Wolfgang Rosenthal (1882–1971) und Martin Waßmund (1892–1956), die dem Fach Mund-Kiefer-Gesichts-Chirurgie zusammen den Weg bereitet hatten. Schuchardts prägende Wirkung erschließt sich bereits beim Blick auf seine Schüler: 13 seiner Mitarbeiter konnten sich unter seiner Ägide habilitieren, acht wurden Ordinarien und zehn weitere leiteten entsprechende Fachabteilungen.

My aim here is to consider the evidence for both anatomical and surgical knowledge in the Middle East and Europe during the medieval period. A large body of excellent re-search exists that explores medicine at that time. However, some areas are understood much better than others, and some theories from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are still included in modern texts even though they have been disproved or significant-ly revised. The Middle East and Europe were distinct geographically, linguistically, and theologically, but the theory that underpinned the understanding of medieval med-icine was the same since both regions followed the humoural theory of the ancient Greeks. Despite the known differences between medieval Europe and the Middle East, there was considerable movement of people, translation of medical texts, and practical interaction between medical practitioners from both regions, especially at the time of the crusades. This complex interaction allows us to consider the flow of ideas between cultures, and to compare and contrast how these differing cultures led to variation in the practice of anatomical dissection and surgery.

La nueva sensibilidad social por todo lo relacionado con la salud y la enfermedad surgida en la Europa latina medieval con la difusión del nuevo sistema médico a partir de la transición del siglo Xlll al XIV, implicó la exigencia de asistencia médica en diversos ámbitos, también a bordo de las naves, ya fueran comerciales o destinadas a la guerra. La práctica médica en el mar fue ejercida de forma casi exclusiva por barberos sin estudios universitarios, pero que se vieron más y más atraídos por el nuevo modelo de medicina y de profesional médico. El contenido de su caja marinera y los libros técnicos que utilizaban, que aquí se dan a conocer con documentación inédita, son buena prueba de ello.

This book examines the role of literate medicine in shaping women's access to medical learning and medical care in the high Middle Ages.  At its core is a cultural history of the so-called 'Trotula' texts, including an analysis of the role that the historic female healer Trota of Salerno.  Note that the complete Conclusion is available for free download from the OUP-UK website (click on the link for "sample material").  Available for download here is the full Index, including the index of manuscripts cited.