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Vitorrio Bonomini a Claudio Campieri a Marina Zuccoli b
a Department of Nephrology, St. Orsola University Hospital, and b Institute of Astronomy, University of Bologna, Italy
Abstract
Guilielmus, one of the most outstanding physicians of the 13th century practised a bedside teaching method and gave guidelines for diagnosing and treating diseases. Written summaries of clinical case histories were his basic didactic instruments and his practise was characterized by a high awareness of doctor-patient relations.
A Brief Biography
Guilielmus was born in 1210 in Saliceto, a hamlet in the commune of Cadeo, about 10 miles southeast of Piacenza, a large city in the heart of the Po valley in northern Italy. This valley is crossed by a very important Roman consular road, the Via Aemilia, connecting Milan to Rimini on the Adriatic coast. Piacenza lies approximately at the end of the first quarter of this long axis that passes through Parma and Bologna. The road must have been traveled several times by Guilielmus. He went to Bologna in 1230 to attend medical school where after 9 years he was appointed a 'Magines in phisica, with the licence to practise the art of Medicine'. He returned there later to become one of the most outstanding teachers of the 13th century[1].
In 1248 he went back to Piacenza and later moved to Cremona, Milan and Pavia. In 1269 he returned to Bologna where he taught and practised medicine and surgery to such effect as to be compared to Avicenna. A few years later he moved to Verona to escape from local civic riots. In Verona he completed his 'Chirurgia' on June 8th, 1275.
Most of his biography can be derived from a valuable critical-historical essay by Boreri [2]. He died in Piacenza in 1277 and was buried between the sacristy and the cloister of the Church of San Giovanni in Canale. His grave is on the bare floor, covered by a tombstone in which we can barely read the inscription 'Sepultura hi regio' (a burial for a king) (fig. 1). Only 245 years later, in 1522, did the college of physicians of Piacenza put up a bas relief on which Guilielmus was represented teaching (fig. 2).
Teaching
His teaching was bedside teaching, in which he would give guidelines...