where it hindered generation; he dissuades section and cauteries in a hernia, and altogether disapproves of the trepan; more he says are cured without it.” In the latter, as a round statement, many moderns will be disposed to join him. His objection to section in hernia is founded on the circumstance of its involving castration, which was the practice even in the time of Paré, the inguinal hernia being the species always referred to. The femoral hernia is a comparatively modern discovery. (Verheyen, 1710.) His method of curing hernia was by burning the skin intercepted between two hooks with a red-hot knife, and afterwards destroying the soft parts, even to the bone, with the actual cautery, the testis being protected! But like Guido he preferred the caustic to either the knife or actual cautery.
The Arabian priests practising surgery considered operations filthy and abominable for the relief of parts on which it was sinful to look. Their successors, the Arabistes, also priests, were infected with the same prudery, under the cloak, real or assumed, of religion. The ustion of the sac and its contents, and the removal of the testis in hernia, display more strikingly and fearfully than any other example which could be cited the active hostility which ignorance of anatomy opposed to the progress of surgery.
Note D.—The origin of the Quatre Maitres is very obscure. They appear to have associated for a charitable purpose, possibly under some religious vow; their superiority in their art gave them the name of masters. They wrote a treatise containing the results of their experience, of which Guy de Chauliac speaks as a work worthy to rank with that of Hippocrates, and from which he drew his knowledge of medicine. Of this work the last remnant was discovered more than two centuries ago in a useless state in the library of the College of Navarre. Many romantic anecdotes are recorded of the Quatre Maitres. Their house in Paris was an asylum for the sick; they always received their patients masked, refused to visit any, and de-
