Epoch-making books in British surgery. I, "A system of surgery" by Master John Arderne / by Sir D'Arcy Power, K.B.E., F.S.A.
- D'Arcy Power
- Date:
- 1927
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Epoch-making books in British surgery. I, "A system of surgery" by Master John Arderne / by Sir D'Arcy Power, K.B.E., F.S.A. Source: Wellcome Collection.
9/16 page 5
![initials ; Arderne does so by tricking their armorial bearings. He gives the following account of a patient : “I saw a man who could not move nor lift either foot or leg, nor could he draw up his foot, and even though it were put to a hot fire it would have been burnt, for he felt nothing, and yet he suffered no great pain and he was well enough in every other part of his body and could eat, drink and sleep well, but he could not go to stool on account of the constipation of his belly”. The shield (Plate II) put against this passage was used by William, Lord of Douglas, who is said to have died of fever after a short illness in 1384. In the light of this record it seems that he had been under treatment for a slight paralytic attack, so that his fatal illness may have been due to a cerebral haemorrhage. This William, as the first Earl Douglas, was surety for the ransome of David II, and was frequently in England. In November, 1363, King Edward III gave him a gilt cup of the value of £10 : 18 : 0. In like manner we learn that Lord de Grey, who served in Gascony in 1366, had a necrosis of his tibia ; that Framling- ham of Suffolk had tenesmus ; that Crioll of Leicester had “ a flux of the belly ” ; that Darbleton of Buck in Lincolnshire had an inflammation of the knee, possibly a staphylococcic infection starting in his tonsils, for it began with headache and a pain in his throat. There are also other shields belong¬ ing to the knightly families of the period, and all are still traceable by those skilled in heraldry. Sometimes, as in Plate I, the illustrations are simply added for the sake of embellishing the manuscript. The king here depicted was probably intended for Demetrius III, King of Georgia, who died in 1289. Arderne may have heard the story from Sir Geoffrey Scrope, who was killed in Lithuania in 1362, the eldest son of Sir Henry le Scrope of Masham in York¬ shire. It runs, according to the text : “ With this medicine [Gum Arabic dissolved in ink and used as an enema] was cured Demetrius, King of Perses, by a Christian man that was prisoner with the same king ; which Christian man was made full rich and was sent home to Christian men’s lands bv com- mandment of the same king, and many prisoners of Christian men were let go free with him.” The plant is “ alleluya, i.e., wood sour, a trefoil growing under shrubs and bearing white flowers. Bruised and put upon haemorrhoids, or condvlomata or dead flesh it freteth softly and removeth all the above said things better than any thing in the world ”. Perhaps the helmet sur¬ mounted by a rat was the cognizance of Geoffrey Scrope. sfc :ji # The Plates shown on pages 7 and 9 are copied by the kind permission of the Keeper of the Manuscripts at the British Museum.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30801175_0009.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
