On an unpublished English anatomical treatise of the fourteenth century, and its relation to the Anatomy of Thomas Vicary / by J.F. Payne.

  • Payne, Joseph Frank, 1840-1910.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On an unpublished English anatomical treatise of the fourteenth century, and its relation to the Anatomy of Thomas Vicary / by J.F. Payne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Roprinteil for the Author from the BRiTtsii Medicai. JotjRNAi,, January 25th, 1896. 3. ON AN UNPUBLISHED ENGLISH ANATOMICAL TREATISE OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY ; AND ITS RELATION TO THE “ ANATOMY ” OF THOMAS VICABY.' By J. F. PAYNE, M.D., Physician to St. Thomas’s Hospital. In the following remarks I venture to draw the attention of the Section to a curious document in medical history, which may be to a certain extent supplementaiy to the valuable and interesting historical address with which my friend Mr. Anderson has favoured us. The MS. which I show you contains a treatise on surgery, not complete and perhaps never completed, but having pre- fixed to it a short treatise on the anatomy of the human body. The work is by an English surgeon whose personality is clearly displayed, though his name is not given, and it is in the English language. The date of composition is given in the text itself as the year of our Lord 1392 ; and I may say briefly that, even were the date wanting, the substance and the language of the work woidd assign it unmistakably to the latter end of the fourteenth century. Of language I am no judge, but I find that the phraseology and to a large extent the spelling precisely agree with a MS. translation of Lanfi-ank’s Surr/eri/, which has been printed by the Early English Text Society, and is assigned to the date 1390. The handwriting of the MS. is, however, considerably more modern, perhaps a centui-y later ; but this point I leave to the judgment of experts. Now, to begin with, this date alone gives our MS. consider- able interest. A treatise on anatomy by an English .author, written in the English language of the fourteenth century, is, so far as I know, unique. But I do not pretend to say that there is no similar treatise till the MS. treasures of the British Museum and other great libraries have been more thoroughly explored than they have been at present. The only documents comparable to it with which I am acquainted are the works of John Arderne, which were originally written m Latin, the English version being assigned by experts to a later period; the translations of Lanfrank’s Surgery, pub- lishM by the English Text Society ; and some translations of the Irench surgeon Henry de Mondeville, which have not yet been published. Let me pause for a moment to point out how important an