BORGOGONNI, TEODORICO
Also called Teodoro 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 1208 according to others. He spent his childhood and youth in Bologna; entered the Order of Preachers; plenipotentiary of Pope Innocent IV, he may also have been his personal physician; was created Bishop of Bitonto in 1262, and in 1266 Bishop of Cervia, with his see at Bologna. There he died in 1298, at the age of 93, and was buried in S. Domenico.
Through his father’s school and by his own efforts, he practiced the medical art, becoming a renowned surgeon. He authored a surgical treatise entitled *Filia principis* from the words with which it begins. His fame as a surgeon is more closely tied to the revolutionary boldness with which he altered the prevailing methods of treatment for both chronic sores and fresh wounds of any kind, recommending the “proper suturing” of the wound and the “ingenious dressing” not to be touched for three or four days, unless sharp pain or signs of suppuration made a new dressing necessary; the wound was protected with a “stupa” soaked in warm wine and wrung out. Another glory of B. is that he attempted surgical anesthesia by means of the “soporific sponge” previously soaked in narcotic substances and “revived” over hot water vapors and applied thus, moist and steaming, to the patient’s nose and mouth.
B.’s *Surgery* was printed and reprinted many times (Venice 1832). He later served as vicar in various districts and finally as parish priest of the Christian community of Con-Dua. Forced into a nomadic life in the forests to escape persecution, he was captured on June 2, 1838, repeatedly beaten with rods, and finally beheaded with seven dagger blows at Dang-hoi, a few days after his appointment as apostolic vicar. He was beatified by Leo XIII on May 27, 1900, along with other martyrs of Amann.