One of the outstanding medical teachers who was also referred to as Guglielmo Salicetti, and taught at Bologna.
He was well educated in the hospital and on the battlefield. He also was the city physician of Verona. He wrote a great text in 1275, "Cyrurgia," for the benefit of his son whom he brought up in the profession. He restored the use of the knife which the Arabians had discontinued in favor of the cautery. He taught how to suture severed nerves.
He emphasised the sign of crepitus (grating when bone is moved) as a diagnosis of fractures. He also was original in assigning sexual intercourse as the real cause of chancre, bubo and phagedenic ulcers. He sutured fresh wounds instead of letting them heal by second intention.
Lived: 1210-1277.
(21 Mar 1998)