French, 3 are in
English, 2 only in Provencal, though that was the language spoken in the
region where much of Chauliac's life was passed, and one each in
Italian, in Low Dutch, and in Hebrew. Of the English manuscripts, one is
number twenty-five English of the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; a
second is number 3666 English of the Sloane collection in the British
Museum, and a third is in the Library of the University of
Cambridge.[26]

Paulin Paris, probably one of the best of recent authorities on the age
and significance of old manuscripts, says in the third volume of his
"Manuscrits Francais," page 346, "This manuscript [of Guy de Chauliac's
"Great Surgery"] was made, if not during the life, then certainly very
shortly after the death of the author. It is one of the oldest that can
be cited, and the fact that an English translation was made so near to
the time of the original composition of the book attests the great
reputation enjoyed by Guy de Chauliac at this time, and which posterity
has fully confirmed."

The Sloane copy in the British Museum contains some medical recipes at
the end by Francis Verney. It was probably written in the fifteenth
century. Its title is:

"The inventorie or the collectorie in cirurgicale parte of
medicine compiled and complete in the yere of our Lord 1363,
with some additions of other doctours, necessary to the
foresaid arte or crapte (crafte?)."[27]

What we find in the period of manuscripts, however, is as nothing
compared to the prestige of Guy de Chauliac's work, once the age of
printing began. Nicaise was able to find sixty different printed
editions of the "Great Surgery." Nine others that are mentioned by
authors have disappeared and apparently no copies of them are in
existence. Besides there are sixty editions of portions of the work, of
compendiums of it and commentaries on it. Altogether 129 editions are
extant. Of these there are sixteen Latin editions, forty-three French,
five Italian, four Low Dutch, five Catalan, and one English. Fourteen
appeared in the fifteenth century, thirty-eight in the sixteenth
century, and seventeen in the seventeenth century. The fourteen editions
belonging to the _incunabula_ of printing, issued, that is, before the
end of the fifteenth century, show what lively interest there was in the
French surgeon of the preceding century, since printing presses at this
precious time were occupied only with the books that were con