< Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu
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ARABIAN AND MEDIEVAL SURGERY

essentially modern. Coeducation was tried in the middle ages and found wanting, and women taught in the medieval universities, and were eminent as physicians, gynecologists and obstetricians. Salerno admitted women to the study of medicine, and women's diseases were taught entirely by women teachers. The most famous of these was Trotula, said to have been the wife of one of the professors. She wrote two books, the most important one being called "Trotula's Wonderful Book of Experience in the Diseases of Women, Before, During and After Labor, with All Other Details Likewise Eelating to Labor." Prenatal care, nursing and the care of mother and child during the puerperium are considered. In the chapter on the perineum a description is given of a complete tear, together with directions for a radical cure in which sutures with silk thread are employed. This author writes:

The woman is then placed in bed with the feet elevated, and must remain in that position even for eating and drinking and all the necessaries of life, for eight or nine days. During this period, also, there should be even no bathing, and care must be taken to avoid everything that might cause coughing, and all indigestible material.

All students of obstetrics might read with profit her directions for care of the perineum during labor. She says:

In order to avoid the aforesaid danger, care should be taken. . . somewhat as follows: a cloth should be folded somewhat in oblong shape and placed on the anus, so that, during every effort for the expulsion of the child, that should be pressed firmly in order that there may not be any solution of the continuity of tissue.

Her works were printed at Strassburg in 1544, and in Leipsig as late as 1778. Nicaise, Chauliac's biographer, says:

Women continued to practise medicine in Italy for centuries, and the names of some who attained great renown have been preserved to us. Their works are still quoted from in the fifteenth century. . . .

Chauliac criticized women surgeons of his day for being too timid in taking chances, and refusing to operate on dangerous cases. There were at least seven women professors at Salerno who wrote works that have survived. One of these, Mercuriade, was a surgeon, and wrote "On the Cure of Wounds." Another one, Abella, wrote "On the Nature, of Seminal Fluid" and "Black Bile." Rebecca Guarna wrote on "Fevers," "The Urine" and "The Embryo."

The last great name in medieval surgery is Guy de Chauliac, that brilliant man who, both chronologically and in virtue of his methods, may be looked upon as the father of modern surgery, if indeed that distinction may be conferred upon any one individual. Born in southern France late in the thirteenth century, he was educated at Montpellier, and then journeyed down to Bologna in Italy, to do post-graduate work in surgery, finally finishing his studies in Paris. One of his teachers

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