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Among the literary monuments of early English medicine the "Compendium
Medicinae" of Gilbertus Anglicus merits a prominent position as the
earliest complete treatise on general medicine by an English author
which has been preserved to our day, and equally because it forms in
itself a very complete mirror of the medical science of its age and
its country.

Gilbert was undoubtedly one of the most famous physicians of his time.
His reputation is recognized in those well-known lines of Chaucer
which catalogue the "authorities" of his Doctor of Phisik:

"Wel knew he the olde Esculapius
And Deyscorides and eek Rufus,
Olde Ypocras, Haly and Galyen,
Serapion, Razis and Avycen,
Averrois, Damascien and Constantyn,
Bernard and Gatesden and Gilbertyn."

He is also quoted with frequency and respect by the medical writers
of many succeeding ages, and the Compendium, first printed in 1510,
enjoyed the honor of a second edition as late as the seventeenth
century (1608). The surname "Anglicus" in itself testifies to the
European reputation of our author, for as Dr. Payne sensibly
remarks, no one in England would speak of an English writer as "the
Englishman."

Yet, in spite of his reputation, we know almost no details of the life