Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 106

OF MILAN LANFRANCO (fl. 1290-1315) Lanfrank's "Science of cirurgie". Published for the Early English Text Society by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner 1894 360 pp. 22.4 cm.

Lanfranco, the founder of French surgery, initially practiced medicine and surgery in Milan but political difficulties forced him to relocate in Lyons where he wrote Chirurgia parva, concerning wounds and ulcers, about 1295. He moved to Paris where he became a highly successful teacher of surgery and wrote his great work, Chirurgia magna, in 1296. Lanfranco preferred cautery over the knife and urged caution in operations such as trephination, lithotomy, cataract extraction, while recommending treatment of hernia with trusses. He operated for intestinal wounds and empyema, provided specific directions for venesection and distinguished between arterial and venous bleeding. Lanfranco was the first to describe brain concussion and gave a classic account of the symptoms of skull fracture. He also made a strong stand against the medieval division between surgery and medicine and stated that the surgeon should also be a physician. Lanfranco's Chirurgia magna was first published as a printed book in 1490 and appeared in an English translation in 1565. Robert von Fleischhacker (fl. 1890) has edited this work for the Early English Text Society from two Middle English translations, the Bodleian Ashmole Ms. 1395 from about 1380 and the British Museum Additional Ms. 12,056 from about 1420.

Gift of Hans L. Ehrenhaft, M.D