SALICETO, WILLIAM OF

born c. 1210, , Saliceto, Piacenza, Lombardy died c. 1277 Italian Guglielmo Da Saliceto, French Guillaume De Salicet physician and cleric, the outstanding European surgeon of the 13th century. His influence was felt throughout western Europe for nearly a century after his death. Saliceto practiced in the principal towns of Lombardy until 1270, when he was appointed to the chair of surgery at the University of Bologna. Four years later he resigned the post to become city physician of Verona, where he wrote the Cyrurgia (1275; Surgery), an original treatise far more extensive than earlier medieval works on the subject. The section devoted to surgical anatomy, perhaps the first of its kind, indicates experience in human dissection, and his refusal to separate methods of surgical diagnosis from the practice of internal medicine exemplifies his advocacy of a union between medicine and surgery. Saliceto also described the suture of severed nerves, differentiated arterial from venous hemorrhage, and rendered a notable account of dropsy resulting from a kidney disorder, characterized by cloudy urine (Bright's disease).