Circa 1290-Circa 1370
Surgeon

Wealthy Patrons. Guy de Chauliac was born into the peasant class in southern France, but with the help of aristocratic benefactors, he was able to learn Latin, attend the universities of Montpellier and Bologna, and reach the highest level of professional medicine. Although mainly interested in surgery, de Chauliac studied the liberal arts and advocated a broad philosophical training for surgeons. There was already a tradition of Latin surgical treatises by de Chauliac's day, dating back to Roger of Salerno's Practica chirugia (The Practice of Surgery, late twelfth century), but de Chauliac recognized the importance of scrutinizing the available translations of both ancient Greek medical authorities and the Arabic digests and commentaries on them by such authors as Rhazes, Avicenna, and Albucasis. Prominent medical and surgical teachers and students of Montpellier before him, foremost among them Arnald of Villanova and Henri of...