Physicians and surgeons in sixteenth-century Venice

Abstract

THE RELATIONSHIP between physicians and surgeons was of fundamental concern to the medical profession in the sixteenth century as in other periods.The superior position enjoyed by the physicians has long been recognized.It was they who con- trolled medical education in the universities, and, to a considerable extent, medical practice in the towns.Their training, which in Italy included up to eight years' uni- versity education in arts and medicine, far exceeded that of the surgeons, and was more academically based.The salaries of physicians hired by communities for public service were greater than those paid to surgeons, and similarly in the universities chairs of medicine commanded higher salaries than chairs of surgery.But in delineat- ing the relationship between the two branches of the profession, historians bave often gone beyond these general truths.The physician has sometimes emerged as almost an academic philosopher, drawn from the upper class and scarcely deigning to take the pulse of his patients.The surgeon on the other hand has been caricatured as ill-educated, with little or no Latin, and hardly differentiated from the ranks of the barbers.This tradition has recently been maintained in certain respects in an imt portant essay on the medical profession in Galileo's Tuscany.In it, Professor Cipolla contrasts the university training of the physicians with the practical apprenticeship of the surgeons, whom he describes as "definitely lower class and for all practical purposes just ordinary craftsmen".'The documents printed below do not support this view, at least in respect of sixteenth-century Venice.Rather, they confirm the opinion of C. D. O'Malley that the contrast between physicians and surgeons has been overstated on the basis of conflicts in London and Paris.2Zuan Francesco Strata, from the island of Burano in the Venetian lagoon, had a successful career in Venice as a surgeon.He served several times in the Venetian fleet as surgeon to the Capitanio General da Mar, and on the third occasion, in 1538, his salary was raised from the normal ten ducats to twelve ducats per month, since he was leaving behind a flourishing practice.3He was a member of the Venetian College of Surgeons, and served at least seven annual terms as its chief officer, or

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