medicine but also acted in the capacity of a teacher of this science. During the latter part of his career he lived in Verona, where he held the position of Municipal Physician and Attending Physician of the City Hospital. He died about the year 1280.
Saliceto's work on surgery is of a thoroughly practical character and reveals the author to have been a born surgeon.[1] In addition to the "Cyrurgia," which was first printed in Piacenza 1476 A. D., he wrote a treatise which bears the title "Summa conservationis et curationis" (printed first in Piacenza in 1475). The "Surgery" is divided into five books, preceded by a short chapter on general methods, etc. Book I. is devoted to affections of the cranium, eruptions on the head, eye diseases, ear diseases (snaring of ear polypi), nasal polypi, abscesses in the axilla, affections of the mammary gland, tumors in different parts of the body, venereal lesions in the groin, and a long list of other surgical maladies. Book II. describes wounds of all sorts, including those produced by arrows (with reports of cases), penetrating wounds of the chest and abdomen (with instructions about sewing both longitudinal and transverse wounds of the intestine), etc. Under the head of penetrating wounds of nerves (declared by the author to be very dangerous), Saliceto recommends enlargement of the wound, the application of oil, and the employment of opium or hyoscyamus to quiet the pain. Book III. treats the subject of fractures and dislocations in a most thorough manner. Mention is made of the crepitation noise heard in fractures (sonitus ossis fracti) and a warning is given not to apply the bandages too tightly and to be careful to change the dressings every three or four days. The instructions given with regard to the reduction of dislocations are said by Neuburger to be most sensible. Book IV. contains such anatomical descriptions as may be helpful to the practical surgeon. From these, however, it is evident that the writer had never dissected the human cadaver. Book V. is devoted to the subject of
- ↑ The most recent edition of this work is a French translation made by P. Pifteau and published at Toulouse, in 1898.
