Gilbertus Anglicus | Page 4

member of the Cleveland Academy of Medicine, of the Ohio State Medical Society, and of the American Medical Association. He was one of the founders and an active worker in the Cleveland Medical Library Association and its President from 1896 to 1902.
He was all his life devoted to the Episcopal Church, was Warden of Grace Episcopal Church, Cleveland, for many years, and Treasurer of the Diocese of Ohio during fourteen years.
During his later years Dr. Handerson withdrew entirely from active practice and spent a great deal of time in his library. His papers abound in carefully prepared manuscripts, some of them running into hundreds of pages.
Two years before his death Dr. Handerson became totally blind. This grievous affliction was borne with unvarying patience and cheerfulness. He still loved to recite from memory the classic authors, to relate and discuss episodes of world history and events of the present, to solve difficult mathematical problems, and to have his data on all subjects verified. He retained his faculties perfectly until April 23, 1918, when he died from cerebral hemorrhage.
He is survived by a daughter, two sons by the second marriage, and his devoted wife.
Among numerous letters received from prominent physicians and authors appreciative of Dr. Handerson's medico-historical labors, one from Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes expresses high praise and requests to have sent to him everything which Dr. Handerson might in future write.
It seems eminently appropriate that the essay on "Gilbertus Anglicus." the last from the pen of Dr. Handerson, should be put in book form, together with a sketch, however brief, of its author's earnest life, his sterling character, his geniality and imperturbable equanimity, and thus preserved in testimony of the high esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries.
SAMUEL WALTER KELLEY.
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RESOLUTIONS
At a meeting of the Council of the Cleveland Medical Library Association, held on May 14, the following resolutions were adopted:
Resolved, That in the death of Dr. Henry E. Handerson the Cleveland Medical Library Association has sustained the loss of one of its most honored and devoted members. His scholarly acquirements were notable, and his eminence as a medical historian generally recognized. His deep interest in the welfare of the Library and his thorough attention to every detail of his official duties were always evident, while his lovable personal qualities endeared him to all.
The Association desires to express its high appreciation of his long and valued services, and extends to his bereaved family its heartfelt and sincere sympathy.
C.A. HAMANN, WM. EVANS BRUNER, J.B. McGEE.
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GILBERTUS ANGLICUS (GILBERT OF ENGLAND)
A STUDY OF ENGLISH MEDICINE IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
BY H.E. HANDERSON, A.M., M.D.
CLEVELAND
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"Nothing in the past is dead to the man who would learn how the present came to be what it is."--Stubbs--_Constitutional Hist. of England_.
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Among the literary monuments of early English medicine the "Compendium Medicinae" of Gilbertus Anglicus merits a prominent position as the earliest complete treatise on general medicine by an English author which has been preserved to our day, and equally because it forms in itself a very complete mirror of the medical science of its age and its country.
Gilbert was undoubtedly one of the most famous physicians of his time. His reputation is recognized in those well-known lines of Chaucer which catalogue the "authorities" of his Doctor of Phisik:
"Wel knew he the olde Esculapius And Deyscorides and eek Rufus, Olde Ypocras, Haly and Galyen, Serapion, Razis and Avycen, Averrois, Damascien and Constantyn, Bernard and Gatesden and Gilbertyn."
He is also quoted with frequency and respect by the medical writers of many succeeding ages, and the Compendium, first printed in 1510, enjoyed the honor of a second edition as late as the seventeenth century (1608). The surname "Anglicus" in itself testifies to the European reputation of our author, for as Dr. Payne sensibly remarks, no one in England would speak of an English writer as "the Englishman."
Yet, in spite of his reputation, we know almost no details of the life of Gilbert, and are forced to content ourselves with the few facts to be gleaned from the scanty biographies of early writers and the inferences drawn from the pages of the Compendium itself. The date and place of his birth and death, and even the field of his medical activities are equally unknown. Bale, Pits and Leland, the earliest English biographers, tell us that Gilbert, after the completion of his studies in England, proceeded to the Continent to enlarge his education, and finally became physician to the great Justiciar, Hubert Walter, archbishop of Canterbury, who died in the year 1205. This would place him under the reign of King John, in the early part of the thirteenth century.
Dr. John Freind, however, the famous English physician and medical historian (1725), observing that Gilbert quotes the Arabian