Technology and Culture

The Cover Design SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS, FROM BRUNSCHWIG’S CIRURGIA Although the history of medicine is a separate historical discipline, it impinges upon the history of technology at many points. Surgical instruments, for example, can be said to represent the application of technology to the practice of medicine. During the Middle Ages the separation between medicine and surgery was almost complete; but during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries surgery as a medical science was reborn in France and Italy. Amid this growth of surgical thought Germany remained largely in a retarded state, at least in the sense that her surgeons lacked originality. However, as the works of Hieronymus Brunschwig show, Germany was not isolated from the developing Continental medical and surgical traditions. As the first surgeon to make wide use of French and Italian sources, Brunschwig made a lasting contribution to German surgery. Henry Sigerist, in a brief and concise English account of Brunschwig’s life and work appended to the 1923 facsimile edition of Brun­ schwig’s The Book of Cirurgia (Das Buch der Cirurgia), noted that Brunschwig, although in general a man of the Middle Ages, “far surpassed his contem­ poraries by his intelligence, his talent, and his education, and because he presented his fellow countrymen with a manual through which they were en­ abled to share in the progress made by other peoples.” The Book of Cirurgia, pub­ lished in 1497, was written for the unspccializcd surgeon and was mainly a compilation of information based on the works and researches of Italian and French surgeons. Through them it expressed 70 The Cover Design a more ancient Greco-Roman and Arabic tradition. The Cirwrgia treats of all things in the range of the general surgeon, the greatest attention being given to wounds and fractures. Although profusely illustrated, the pictures in this book cannot be called scientific illustrations; they often have only a vague connection with the text. However, while the picture of surgical instruments chosen for illustration here may have been enhanced by its unknown artist, they are closely related to the text. These instruments represent a good cross-section of the late fifteenth-century surgeon’s equipment. Although Brunschwig did not actively serve as a surgeon on a war front, pincers of one kind and another (such as pictured at the extreme left middle and the third from the left at top) indicate that he was called upon at times to remove arrowheads and bullets. Dilators, oper­ ated by a screw, are shown fourth from the right at the top. Trephin­ ing was facilitated by the triangular-headed instrument at the extreme upper right which was used to bore through the skull. Amputation, the only major surgical operation described by Brunschwig, was com­ pleted with the bone saw seen to the right of the table top. Assorted other instruments, including a syringe, knife, cautery, and needle, com­ plete this scene. Little is known of Brunschwig’s personal life. He was born about 1450 in Strassburg and developed an early interest in surgery. After completing his apprenticeship in surgery and then becoming a master of that craft he led the life of a wanderer, traveling in Alsace, Bavaria, Franconia, and the Rhine countries as far as Cologne. He finally settled in Strassburg, where he became the surgeon for that city. Unlike most contemporaneous medical works, The Book of Cirurgia was written in German. Two editions of the Cirurgia appeared in the fifteenth century (both in 1497) and three further editions appeared in the sixteenth century (in 1513, 1534, and 1539). The first edition of July 1497 was the first medical work produced with the aid of the printing press in Germany. Two English translations appeared in 1525, and a Bohemian translation was available in 1559. Our cover illustration is taken from Sigerist’s facsimile edition (Milan, 1923) of the original 1497 edition, in the collection of the Cleveland Medical Library. Patsy A. Gerstner* * Miss Gerstner, a graduate fellow in the history of science at Case Institute of Technology, is assistant curator of the Howard Dittrick Museum of Medical History (Cleveland, Ohio). 71 ...