The lesser writings of John Arderne / by D'Arcy Power.

  • D'Arcy Power
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The lesser writings of John Arderne / by D'Arcy Power. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    is fixed by the church services and cock-crow ; the grades of the patients, chiefly knights and priests, sometimes citizens, occasionally ladies. Hysteria and neurasthenia common, epidemics on a large scale not infrequent, so that Arderne was able to quote cases by the hundred. Hydrophobia and rabies sufficiently familiar to enable him to give a first-rate account of the symptoms; tetanus and facial paralysis distinguishable the one from the other; and cancer, in the sense that we now use the word, clearly described. ' In the profession Arderne mentions various grades. There was the — ‘lady ’ who gave simple advice and treatment ; the apothecary who sold drugs and plasters ; the leech, sometimes skilful, more often foolish, who treated the patient before he brought him to the master surgeon such as was John himself; lastly, the physician with whom the master surgeon . often consulted and seemingly on more equal terms than was the case several generations later. I have not been able.to discover any additional facts about John Arderne since the issue of his treatises in 1910. John of Gaunt’s Register, edited by Mr. Armitage-Smith (Camden Society, series iii, vol. xxi, IgII), shows that there were two persons of the name of Arderne in the Prince’s household. The one, William dardern, ‘our well beloved valet’, was appointed the Parker or Ranger of Pickering in the North Riding of Yorkshire; the other, John Ardern, was the Steward or Seneschal of ‘ our manor of Passenham in the County of Northampton’. William dardern was dead in August 1374, because inquiries were then being made about certain houses which had been granted to him at Pomfret. The only mention of John Ardern is that he was Seneschal on October 7, 1375. | The same Register contains interesting details about the rate and method of paying the medical attendants in the households of great people in the fourteenth century. | ‘ John Bray, our physician, to have x lib. a year from our manor of Kyngeston in Dorset, a bouche en court as a chamberlain & two horses and the wage of one boy with ii sol. per day for travelling expenses.’ The warrant is dated at the Savoy, September 20, 1372. Two days later, on September 22, 1372, the allowance for travelling is increased from two shillings to three shillings a day. The grant is confirmed on August 17, 1375, and on July 14, 1373, it was ordered that he should receive ‘a deym de grece’ or present of venison. It was this John the Minorite, ‘Johannes de ordine Minorum, in armis bellicis strenuus, in physica peritissimus, domino Johanni duci Lancastriae familiarissimus’, as he is described by the Chronicler, who was murdered by the London mob when the Savoy was burnt in 1381. His colleague was Frere William de Appilton, physician and surgeon, who was granted ‘xl marks in time of peace or war from: the honour of Pomfret ; in war time other xl. marks, a bouche en court as a gentleman, clerk, or esquire or a chamberlain ; four horses and wages for two garcons’. The warrant is dated at the Savoy on March 15, 1373:
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