A treatise on gall-stones : their chemistry, pathology, and treatment / by J. L. W. Thudichum.

  • Thudichum, J. L. W. (John Louis William), 1829-1901.
Date:
MDCCCLXIII. [1863]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on gall-stones : their chemistry, pathology, and treatment / by J. L. W. Thudichum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    1. the second book. No notice of the lapis fel/is tauri is to be found in the index to the work of Avicenna. Avicenna wrote about and after the year 1000 p. Chr. nat.; his works were translated by Gerard, of Cremona, about 1114. About 200 years after this date we find another notice of gall-stones in the ' Liber Pandectarum Medici nse,’ by Sylvaticus (“ Matthew Moretus Brixianus, Bononie in medicina et astronomia legens”), originally published in 1317. The beautiful edition of this work contained in the College of Surgeons’ library is not paginated, and dated 1474. In this edition the 533rd chapter contains this passage:—“ Massatum c. lapis qui invenitur in felle bovis.” Gesner says in the place last quoted that Sylvaticus also terms the gall-stone “ guers,” and that both “ massatum ” and “ guers ” are Arabian expressions. Like most words in Sylvaticus they are perhaps unintelligible, as is also the alleged Arabian word “ haratzi,” mentioned by Scaliger. Neither “massatum,” nor “ guers,” nor “ haratzi,” nor the “alcheron” of Rhazes, is contained in the lists of expo- sitions of Arabian words given by Andreas Alpagus Bellunen- sis. On these doubts about the expressions of Sylvaticus, see Preind, f Hist, of Physick,’ 1750, ii, 265; also Reine- sius, ‘ Yariar. lection., libr. tres,’ Altenburgi, 1640, 4to. Seventy or eighty years after the pandectarian Sylvaticus the first observations of gall-stones in the human subject were made by Benivenius (Ital., Benivieni), a celebrated physician at Florence. He wrote a treatise f On the Hidden Causes of Diseases,’ which illustrates better than any other I am acquainted with that part of the first aphorism of Hippocrates, which maintains that experience is fallacious and judgment difficult. The work was not published until several years after its author’s death, which took place in 1502. Perhaps the earliest edition is that which was published at Florence, in quarto, in 1507, under the title