A new Guy de Chauliac MS. / by J.A. Nixon.
- Nixon, John Alexander, 1874-1951.
- Date:
- 1914
Licence: In copyright
Credit: A new Guy de Chauliac MS. / by J.A. Nixon. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![The wind is the subject of a short description which begins ‘ Ventus est Vapor siccus ab inferioribus resolutus ad superioribus ascendens’. Tile fixed stars such as Pleiades possess certain powers, while the properties of drink, sleep, and moderate coitus are also mentioned. Lastly, four chapters are devoted to the prognostication of diseases in the four seasons, spring, summer, autumn, and winter ; and the efficacy of remedies appropriate to the seasons. The treatise occupies seven double pages, and closes abruptly after mentioning the value of many plants ‘ et sic de aliis, et sic prognoscabitur. Si deus Voluefit explicit ’. There is nothing to indicate that this ‘ Astrologia ’ is by another author than Guy de Chauliac. This is undoubtedly not an example of the common practice of binding several MS. treatises together, for the reason that the writing is continuous from the end of the Cirurgia Magna. There is another treatise included in this MS. which comes after the ‘ Astrologia ’ and is separated from it by several blank pages. This is the ‘ Centilogium of Tholomeus ’ as shown by its opening phrase, ‘ Wa seu sentencia tholomei in suo centilogio ’. An exceedingly interesting Latin-English glossary in the same hand- writing as that of the ‘ Practica astrolabii ’ completes the volume. The whole MS. seems to originate from the time when John, Duke of Bedford, was fighting the battles of the English in France after the death of Henry W It was in these wars that Joan of Arc successfully resisted the English arms, and it was from these wars that the organization of military surgery gave so great an impetus to the profession of surgery in England. It seems probable that the Duke of Bedford, at the instance of his principal surgeons, Thomas Morstede and Nicholas Colnet, ordered this copy of Guy de Chauliac’s Cirurgia Magna to be made for the benefit of the surgeons of his army. But of the subsequent history of this MS. until it came into the possession of Tobias Mathew; Archbishop of York, some two hundred years later, nothing is known. REFERENCES Nicaise.—La Grande Chirurgie de Guy de Chauliac, Paris, 1890. Nixon, J. —Guy de Chauliac, a new .MS. including the ' Practica astrolabii Janus, xii, 1907 (Jan.). [Note.—For the loan of the blocks, the Author is indebted to the City Librarian, Bristol.]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22460457_0010.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
