CROSSROADS AT SALERNO - CAMPBELL,ELDRIDGE AND THE WRITINGS OF BORGOGNONI,TEODORICO ON WOUND-HEALING - HISTORICAL VIGNETTE

During Eldridge Campbell's tom of duty as the neurosurgical consultant to the Mediterranean theater of World War II operations, he was intro duced to a then-revolutionary method of wound treatment. Ironically, C ampbell's diligent research efforts later revealed that this method of wound treatment had first been advocated seven centuries earlier-in t he same geographical location-by the Italian surgeon Theodoric. Althou gh controversial, this method of wound care was subsequently applied a nd supported by Theodoric's outspoken pupil, Henri de Mondeville, desp ite intense opposition from the prevailing medical authorities who sup ported the doctrine of ''laudable pus'' for wound management. With Mon deville's death, Theodoric's technique lapsed into obscurity, relegate d to a historical footnote until modern biology and the discoveries of Lister and Pasteur would again bring to light the benefits of nonsupp urative wound treatment. In this article the author discusses the work of Theodoric, Mondeville, and Campbell in light of the medical climat e of their times and explores the contemporary parallels noted by Camp bell in terms of the neglect of other, more recent medical discoveries . These examples encourage us to accept or reject medical treatments b ased on a thorough examination of their efficacy and not on the statur e of their advocates within the medical community.