The Old English illustrated pharmacopoeia: British Library Cotton Vitellius CIII

Hippocrates and Galen, the translations made from Greek to those from Arabic, and using the more recent translations in preference to older ones: for example, the translation of the Royal book of 'Ali ibn al'Abbas made by Stephen of Antioch (Liber regalis) rather than the older version of Constantine the African (Pantegni). But, beyond this, he adds his personal stamp. He provides what is probably the most detailed and critical history of writings on surgery up to his time, and frequently refers to his own experience and the examples of his teachers. He transforms the language of his authorities into a fluent and clear Latin, and adds tags from literature and philosophy (including the well-known saying of Bernard of Chartres that the moderns are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants, and the statement that he is a greater friend to truth than to Socrates or Plato: on this subject one may add the study of L Taran, 'Amicus Plato sed magis amica veritas, from Plato and Aristotle to Cervantes', Antike und Abendland, 1984, 30: 93-124). One can only regret that his interest in illustration was not as refined as that of his Arabic predecessor, Abu'l-Qasis al-Zahrawi. With Guy, surgery had achieved the status of a scholastic science which depended as much on works of theoretical medicine and Aristotelian natural science as on actual practice in the operation theatre. All students of medieval medicine will find a vast store of information in these volumes, and be grateful to the meticulousness equally of Guy de Chauliac and of his editor.