Old Ypocras, Haly and Galien;
Serapyon, Razis, and Avycen;
Averrois, Damascen, and Constantyn;
Bernard, and Gatisden, and Gilbertyn.
Of his diete mesuráble was he,
For it was of no superfluitee,
But of gret norishing and digestible.
With the names of the three English physicians mentioned above, there should be associated that of Jehan Yperman, who was born in Ypern, Flanders, during the latter half of the thirteenth century, obtained his professional training in Paris under Lanfranchi, and then, in 1303 or 1304, accepted the position of Physician to the Hospital of Belle, a small Flemish town. In 1318 he settled permanently in Ypern, his native city, and in a comparatively short time won completely the confidence and esteem of his fellow townsmen through his attentiveness to their wants when they were ill and through the great skill which he manifested in his work as a surgeon. He died 1329 A. D.
Yperman’s writings deal with both medical and surgical topics. Of those which have been translated from the Latin into French are: “La chirurgie de maitre J. Yperman,” Anvers, 1863; “Traité de médecine pratique de maitre J. Yperman,” Anvers, 1863; and “Traité de médecine pratique de maitre J. Yperman,” Anvers, 1867. A perusal of these works, says Neuburger, easily convinces one that Yperman was not only a skilful and clever surgeon, but also a physician of independent judgment and wide experience.
Revival of the Practice of Dissecting Human Bodies.—It was in Italy that dissecting was carried on during the fourteenth century more vigorously than elsewhere in Europe. At first the only persons who made such investigations for scientific purposes were individual physicians or groups of physicians; and, in addition, they were obliged to carry on the work in a secret manner—that is, by stealing from recently dug graves the corpses which were necessary for such studies. It is related, for example, that in 1319 one of the teachers in the Medical School at Bologna and four of his pupils were brought before the Court of Law under the charge of having clandestinely disinterred, for purposes of dissection, the body of a man who had been hung for some crime. At first the authorities merely winked at such transgressions, but at the same time they made no attempts to have the law against dissecting annulled or at least modified. Then, at a somewhat later period, the conviction became general among the intelligent members of the community that, unless work of this nature were officially sanctioned, no real advance in the knowledge of human anatomy could be made, and—what was probably of even greater importance in their estimation—that Bologna might at the same time lose a good deal of its superiority over its rivals as a centre of learning; and accordingly it was found practicable to grant the desired sanction with many modifying restrictions attached. Then, with the further lapse of time, other medical schools fell into line and secured from the authorities similar privileges for their teachers and pupils. Thus, in 1368, the Senate of Venice authorized the medical school of that city to make a public dissection of a human body once every year; and, eight years later, the University of Montpellier acquired the same privilege. In 1391 John I. of Spain was equally generous in his treatment of the Medical School at Lerida. After the opening of the fifteenth century no further difficulties of a serious nature were experienced by the teachers of anatomy in procuring at least some material for dissecting purposes, and with each succeeding year such facilities steadily increased. Unfortunately, however, there did not follow a corresponding increase in the knowledge of human anatomy. As a matter of fact, it was not until during the sixteenth century that any really valuable work was accomplished in this branch of medicine. Guy de Chauliac, in the first chapter of his treatise (“La Grande Chirurgie”), gives the following description of the manner in which Bertrucius taught anatomy in Bologna at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and from this account it is easy to understand why the additions to our stock of information in this department of medicine were so few and so unimportant during this long period. The so-called dissecting, it clearly appears, was in reality a not very profitable combination of purely anatomical work of a primitive character and a search for evidences of pathological changes. The clinical history of the individual whose body was undergoing examination does not seem to have played any part in the investigation. Here is De Chauliac’s account:—