line between Germany and Switzerland. The exact date of Wuertz's death is not known, but—from various facts which he mentions in his book—it may be inferred that it occurred in 1576, and that he was residing at the time in the house of his son, who had the same name as himself and was also a surgeon. The title of the treatise which he wrote and which passed through a number of editions between the years 1563 and 1651,—not to mention translations into the French and Dutch languages—was: "Practica der Wundarznei" (The Treatment of Surgical Affections).
Malgaigne—says von Gurlt, in his History of Surgery—does not hesitate to speak of Wuertz as one of the three greatest surgeons of the sixteenth century (Franco and Ambroise Paré being the other two); and von Gurlt adds that Wuertz's "Practica" is rich in facts which he had gathered from his own experience in everyday practice, and upon which he makes comments that really represent his own views and not those of various other authors. The leading principles which guided Wuertz in his treatment of wounds of all kinds are thus formulated by him:—
Keep them as neat and clean as possible, and disturb them as
little as you can; so far as may be practicable, exclude the air;
favor healing under a scab; and do not give the patient a lowering
diet, but feed him as you would a woman recovering from her
confinement.
According to von Gurlt, Wuertz attached relatively small
importance to healing by first intention, and only in rare
cases did he make special efforts to secure this result. On
the other hand, he availed himself of every opportunity to
enter his protest against some of the bad tendencies which
had somewhat suddenly made their appearance in the
practice of surgery in his day, and more especially "against
the almost universal employment of caustics and the red-hot
iron for arresting bleeding; against the uncalled-for
and positively harmful habit of repeatedly probing a
wound; against the unreasonable practice of inserting
tents into wounds; against the uncontrolled application of
