The most famous physicians of this period were:—
Petrus Apono, or Pietro of Abano (1250-1315), a famous physician, who lived at Abano near Padua, and who had studied medicine and other sciences at Padua and Paris. He travelled in Greece and other parts, acquired a knowledge of the Greek language, and was a devoted student of the works of Averroes. He endeavoured to mediate between the Arabian and the Greek physicians in their controversies on medicine, and wrote with that view his work, entitled the Conciliator differentiarum philosophorum et precipue medicorum. He knew enough of physiology to be aware that the brain is the source of the nerves, and the heart that of all the blood-vessels. He meddled with astrology, and was accused of practising magic, of possessing the philosopher’s stone. He was found guilty on his second trial by the Inquisition; but as he died before the trial was completed, he was merely burned in effigy.
Jacob de Dondis (1298-1359) was a physician, who was a professor at Padua, and was famous as the author of an herbal with plates containing descriptions of simple medicines.
Arnold of Villa Nova (1235-1312), physician, alchemist, and astrologer, did much to advance chemical science, and whose work, the Breviarium Practicæ, is not a mere compilation. He advised his pupils, when they failed to find out what was the matter with their patients, to declare that there was “some obstruction of the liver,”—a practice much in vogue even in the present day. He was the first to administer brandy, which he called the elixir of life (Baas). He discovered the art of preparing distilled spirits (Thomson).
Collections of medical cases first began to be preserved in an intelligible form in the thirteenth century; they were called consilia. Those by Fulgineus (before 1348), by Montagnana (died 1470), and by Baverius de Baveriis, of Imola (about 1450), are said to be interesting.[795]
Gordonius was a Scottish professor at Montpellier, who in 1307 wrote the Practica seu Lilium Medicinæ; it went through several editions, and was translated into French and Hebrew.
Sylvaticus (ob. 1342) wrote a sort of medical glossary and dictionary.
Gilbertus Anglicanus (about 1290) wrote a compendium of medicine, also called Rosa Anglicana, a work of European reputation, said to contain good observations on leprosy.
John of Gaddesden was an Oxford man and a court physician, who between 1305 and 1317 wrote the Rosa Anglica seu Practica Medicinæ,—a work which, though of little merit, remained popular up to the sixteenth century. Some of his remedies are very curious. For loss of memory he prescribed the heart of a nightingale, and he was a firm believer in the efficacy of the king’s touch for scrofula. For small-pox he prescribed the following treatment, as soon as the eruption appeared: “Cause the whole body of your patient to be wrapped in scarlet cloth, or in any other red cloth, and command everything about the bed to be made red. This is an excellent cure.” Again, for epilepsy, the method of cure was as follows: “Because there are many children and others afflicted with the epilepsy, who cannot take medicines, let the following experiment be tried, which I have found to be effectual, whether the patient was a demoniac, a lunatic, or an epileptic. When the patient and his parents have fasted three days, let them conduct him to a church. If he be of a proper age, and of his right senses, let him confess. Then let him hear Mass on Friday, and also on Saturday. On Sunday let a good and religious priest read over the head of the patient, in the church, the gospel which is read in September, in the time of vintage, after the feast of the Holy Cross. After this, let the priest write the same gospel devoutly, and let the patient wear it about his neck, and he shall be cured. The gospel is, ‘This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.’” These quotations are both from the Medical Rose; and as the author was at the head of his profession, numbered princes amongst his patients, and was extolled by writers of the time, it doubtless fairly represents the practice of the period. The medicine of the period embraced the demon theory of disease and the belief in the efficacy of amulets, or more correctly of characts.