passage which I can refer only to the erudition and risibility of our
modern surgeons and anatomists. The ticklish _vene titillares_ are to
me entirely unknown.

Modern abdominal surgeons will probably be interested in reading
Gilbert's chapter on the treatment of wounds of the intestines in the
thirteenth century. He says (f. 234c):

If some portion of the intestine has escaped from a wound of the
abdomen and is cut either longitudinally or transversely, while the
major portion remains uninjured; if the wound has existed for some
time and the exposed intestine is cold, some living animal, like a
puppy (_catulus_), is to be killed, split longitudinally and placed
over the intestine, until the latter is warmed, vivified by the
natural heat and softened. Then a small tube of alder is prepared, an
inch longer than the wound of the intestine, carefully thinned down
(_subtilietur_) and introduced into the gut through the wound and
stitched in position with a very fine square-pointed needle, threaded
with silk. This tube or canula should be so placed as to readily
transmit the contents of the intestine, and yet form no impediment to
the stitches of the wound. When this has been done, a sponge moistened
in warm water and well washed should be employed to gently cleanse the
intestines from all foreign matters, and the gut, thus cleansed, is to
be returned to the abdominal cavity through the wound of the abdominal
wall. The patient is then to be laid upon a table and gently shaken,
in order that the intestines may resume their normal position in the
abdomen. If necessary the primary wound should be enlarged for this
purpose. When the intestines have been thus replaced, the wound in
the abdominal wall is to be kept open until the wound of the intestine
seems healed. Over the intestinal suture a little _pulvis ruber_