Borgognoni, Teodorico

BORGOGNONI, TEODORICO. - Also called Teodorico da Lucca (improperly, according to those who believe he was born in Parma), son of Ugo, a surgeon of good repute; born in 1205 or, according to others, 1208. He spent his childhood and youth in Bologna; he entered the Order of Preachers; plenipotentiary of Pope Innocent IV, he was perhaps also his archiater; he was created bishop of Bitonto in 1262, in 1266 bishop of Cervia, with seat at Bologna. There he died in 1298, at the age of 93, and was buried in S. Domenico.

Trained in his father's school and working on his own, he practiced the medical art, becoming a highly renowned surgeon. He was the author of a treatise on surgery entitled Filia principis from the words with which it begins. His fame as a surgeon is linked, more than to the technical expertise demonstrated in practice, to the revolutionary boldness with which he changed the current method of treatment both for chronic wounds and for recent wounds of any kind, recommending the "decent suture" of the wound and the "ingenious dressing" not to be touched before three or four days, unless sharp pain and signs of suppuration made a new dressing necessary; the wound was protected with "stupes" soaked in hot wine and wrung out. Another glory of the B. is that of having attempted surgical narcosis by means of the soporific "spongia" previously "imbued with stupefacient substances and made to "revive" over vapors of hot water and thus applied, damp and steaming, to the nose and mouth of the patient. The Chirurgia of the B. was printed and published repeatedly (Venice 1498, 1499, 1513, 1519, 1546).

Adalberto Pazzini