In Edward the First’s reign the king’s physician had twelve pence per day for his expenses in visiting the Countess of Gloucester, the king’s daughter, when she was ill.[789]
The art of poisoning was brought to considerable perfection in the Middle Ages, and there is abundant evidence of the fact that women were commonly agents in it.[790]
In Edward the Third’s reign the ladies of the household were both nurses and doctors. Regular practitioners were few, and the mistress of the house and her maidens were compelled to do the best they could in their absence. Medicinal herbs were cultivated in every garden, and were either dried or made into decoctions and kept ready for use. Many of these fair practitioners were reputed to be very skilful in medical practice. Chaucer, in the “Nonne-Prestes Tale,” has left a faithful picture of the domestic medicine of the period in the character of Dame Pertelot.
CHAPTER VII.
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
Revival of Human Anatomy.—Famous Physicians of the Century.—Domestic Medicine in Chaucer.—Fellowship of the Barbers and Surgeons.—The Black Death.—The Dancing Mania.—Pharmacy.
Revival of Human Anatomy.
Brighter days dawned for medical science after the close of the thirteenth century, up to which era the Saracenic learning prevailed. While human dissections were impossible, the sciences of anatomy and philosophy had made no advance beyond the point at which they were left by Galen, and as he dissected only animals they were necessarily left in a very imperfect state. It is not known precisely when human dissection was revived; probably the school of Salerno, under the influence of Frederick II., has a right to the honour. In 1308, however, we find the senate of Venice decreeing that a body should be dissected annually,[791] and it is known that such dissections took place at Bologna in 1300. We have, however, nothing very definite on the subject till a few years later. Italy gave birth to the first great anatomist of Europe.
The father of modern anatomy was Mondino, who taught in Bologna about the year 1315. Under his cultivation “the science first began to rise from the ashes in which it had been buried.”[792] His demonstrations of the different parts of the human body at once attracted the notice of the medical profession of Europe to the school of Bologna. He died in 1325. Though he had a penetrating faculty of observation, he was not altogether original, as he copied Galen and the Arabians. He divided the body into three cavities: the upper, containing the animal members; the lower, the natural members; and the middle, the spiritual members. His anatomy of the heart is wonderfully accurate, and he came very near to the discovery of the circulation of the blood.[793] He described seven pairs of nerves at the base of the brain, and was evidently acquainted with the anatomy of that organ.
He is said to have had the assistance of a young lady, Alassandra Giliani, as prosector. Anatomical demonstrations in those days were, at the best, very imperfect. The demonstrator did not actually himself dissect; this was done by a barber-surgeon with a razor, the lecturer merely standing by and pointing out the objects of interest to the students with his staff. Nor did the process occupy much time; four lessons served to explain the mysteries of the human frame: the first was on the abdomen, the second on the organs of the chest, the third on the brain, and the fourth on the extremities.[794] The bodies were buried, or placed in running or boiling water, to soften the tissues and facilitate their examination. Dissections first took place at Prague in 1348, Montpellier after 1376, Strasburg, 1517. In Italy, sometimes, a condemned criminal was first stabbed in prison by the executioner, and then conveyed at once to the dissecting room, for the use of the doctors.