approach. Thus each chapter starts with a resume ofEuropean history, followed by a briefaccount ofthe social position ofsurgeons, and then a rather longer exposition of surgical skills and practice. The strength of this work is twofold. First, it is thoroughly researched and replete with detail that can be trusted to be accurate. Second, although dealing with the major surgical traditions since...

because he came from a region famous above all for its portrait painters?; and so on, and so on. When he is not busy posing questions, Herrlinger does his best to provide answers. For example, he demonstrates the persistence of classical motifs through the Middle Ages (citing an eleventh-century Byzantine MS in the Laurentian Library, Florence) and into the Rennaissance (e.g. Vidius Vidius); he...