Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 107

GUYA [GUY DE CHAULIAC] (ca. 1300-ca. 1368) Guidon in cirugia. Per Cesaro Arrivabeno 1521] [4] cxxxviii (misnumbered cxl) [1] ll. Copy 1: 31.1 cm. Modern vellum; Copy 2: 29.6 cm.

Guy de Chauliac was undoubtedly the most famous surgeon of the later Middle Ages. He studied at Montpellier, Paris, and Bologna, receiving his Magister in 1325. During the great plague he was physician to Pope Clement VI and later to the popes at Avignon, where he became acquainted with Petrarch. His Chirurgia magna was the standard surgical text during the later Middle Ages and was frequently found in manuscript form before its first printed publication in 1478. It was still being reprinted and translated two centuries later, so great was its influence. The present edition is representative of the scores of editions of the work. Guy was a reactionary, however, not following some of the reasonable principles of several of his predecessors, and his persistence in the meddlesome surgery of cautery, salves, and plasters, retarded surgery for at least two centuries because of his great authority. This exhaustive treatise tells the personal and educational requirements of a physician; discusses pathology, medical treatment, surgery, and drug therapeutics; and altogether shows a spirit of aggressiveness which made Guy de Chauliac respected but not particularly loved.

Cited references: Durling 2245; Waller 3820

Gift of John Martin, M.D.