during the course of his practice. The latter work, which is entitled "Curationum medicinalium centuriae VII.,"[1] was printed in its entirety in Venice, in 1556 (2 vols.). Von Gurlt speaks of Amatus as a cultivated scholar and an excellent observer. Of the seven hundred cases reported in this work only a very few are of interest to the surgeon. Von Gurlt calls attention to the fact that, during the earlier years of his practice, Amatus devoted a fair share of his attention to surgery, but that subsequently he performed no operations whatever; it being his rule to intrust this work entirely to a regular surgeon or to a specialist.
In my search among the dozen or more histories of cases selected by von Gurlt from the seven "Centuries" (700) of the complete treatise as suitably illustrating Amatus' manner of reporting the cases which he had seen in practice, the various methods of treatment which he adopted in his efforts to relieve the diseases or injuries that came under his observation, and the demeanor of the man in the presence of the ever-changing problems presented to the physician, I have succeeded in finding only four that seem to furnish in even a slight degree the information which I have just outlined. Unsatisfactory as these four reports are in certain respects,—especially in their failure to reveal to us the more strictly surgical capabilities of Amatus,—they at least show that he was an able and conscientious practitioner, and to this extent they possess value.
The first case reported in Century I. is that of a peasant girl,
aged thirteen, who, while walking barefooted in a field was bitten
by a viper. Amatus did not see the patient until three hours later,
but already at this early stage he observed many blue and red
patches, scattered over the leg and thigh of the side on which the
bite had been inflicted. Near the base of the foot there were two
quite black spots corresponding to the bites of the reptile; and
from the fact that there were only two such spots Amatus inferred
that the snake must have been a male viper, which has only two
poison fangs and is therefore less dangerous than the female which
has four. The symptoms which the girl experienced were faintness,
trembling and dizziness. As regards the treatment adopted,
- ↑ The word "centuria" is employed here in the sense of "a group of one hundred."
