it was not necessary "that pus should be generated in
wounds." Professor Clifford Allbutt says:

They washed the wound with wine, scrupulously removing every
foreign particle; then they brought the edges together, not
allowing wine or anything else to remain within--dry adhesive
surfaces were their desire. Nature, they said, produces the
means of union in a viscous exudation, or natural balm, as it
was afterwards called by Paracelsus, Pare, and Wurtz. In older
wounds they did their best to obtain union by cleansing,
desiccation, and refreshing of the edges. Upon the outer
surface they laid only lint steeped in wine. Powders they
regarded as too desiccating, for powder shuts in decomposing
matters; wine after washing, purifying, and drying the raw
surfaces evaporates.

Almost needless to say these are exactly the principles of aseptic
surgery. The wine was the best antiseptic that they could use and we
still use alcohol in certain cases. It would seem to many quite
impossible that such operations as are described could have been done
without anaesthetics, but they were not done without anaesthetics. There
were two or three different forms of anaesthesia used during the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. One method employed by Ugo da Lucca
consisted of the use of an inhalant. We do not know what the material
employed was. There are definite records, however, of its rather
frequent employment.

What a different picture of science at the medieval universities all
this makes from what we have been accustomed to hear and read with
regard to them. It is difficult to understand where the old false
impressions came from. The picture of university work that recent
historical research has given us shows us professors and students busy
with science in every department, making magnificent advances, many of
which were afterwards forgotten, or at least allowed to lapse into
desuetude.

The positive assertions with regard to old-time ignorance were all made
in the course of religious controversy. In English-speaking countries
particularly it became a definite purpose to represent the old Church as
very much opposed to education of all kinds and above all to scientific
education. There is not a trace of that to be found anywhere, but there
were many documents that were appealed to to confirm the protestant
view. There was a Papal bull, for instance, said to forbid dissec