Licence: In copyright
Credit: The lesser writings of John Arderne / by D'Arcy Power. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![or heard at first hand about the treatment of, Sir James Douglas (1286- J 1330) perhaps when he was in Flanders or in Spain. Arderne seems to I have visited Ireland, Flanders, Algeciras, and Guienne. He gives a few I facts about his experiences in each place, as well as a short but interesting ] table of words in French, Flemish, and Irish, with their English equiva- lents. He settled at Newark-on-Trent in the year 1349, perhaps because the ravages of the Black Death caused a temporary cessation of hostilities ■ and compelled the military surgeons to seek a more peaceful method of gaining a livelihood. He practised at Newark until 1370, when he moved to London, and was admitted into the Fellowship of Surgeons, a small guild distinct from the Fellowship of Barbers. Arderne seems to have begun his writing after he settled in London, and he published the results of his long experience in a series of Latin treatises dealing with different subjects of medical importance. These treatises were issued separately, for they are arranged in different order in the various copies of his collected works which are still extant. But it is clear from the number of these copies that the treatises were much read by his contem- poraries, and they were soon translated into English for the use of the less learned brethren. Most of the manuscripts are fragmentary, but the British Museum contains a beautifully illustrated copy of what may be called the ' opera omnia ' (Sloane MSS., No. 2002), and Emmanuel College, Cambridge,1 possesses the complete works in the form of a translation made early in the fifteenth century. The most important of these treatises is undoubtedly that upon Fistula in Ano and fistulas generally, about which it is unnecessary to speak at any great length as I published an English translation of it for the Early English Text Society in 1910. It is sufficient to say that it shows Arderne at his best, a surgeon worthy to be classed with his great contemporary Guy of Chauliac (1298 P-I368), though, unlike Guy, he seems to have remained a layman until his life's end. The lesser treatises deserve rather more attention than has been given to them, and I have, therefore, taken the opportunity of the establish- ment of this historical section of the Seventeenth International Congress of Medicine to devote a short time to their consideration. The Mirror of Blood-letting. The first treatise, which has no title, must be quoted like the well-known ' circa instans ' by its first words, which are ' Hoc est Speculum Phlebotomiae' or ' The Mirror of Blood-letting '. It is a practical treatise giving general directions for minution dealing with the season, the age of the patient, and the part from which blood should be let in different diseases. There is no doubt as to its authorship, 1 The MS. is numbered 69 in the Western Manuscripts in the Library of Em- manuel College. Dr. Montague Rhodes James describes it as ' Paper, 8* x 5|, ff. 210, 29 lines to a page. Cent, xv, clearly written with curious drawings. Stamped leather binding of cent. xvi. ' Collegio Emmanuelis sacrum posuit Humfredus Moselcy anniger et sociorum commensalis 1649. * Collation i10 [15,16 cane], 212-i6, 170, 184, 191, 2o? [four left last stuck to cover].' Medicinu Z 12.A73 30114014335718](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21463724_0004.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
