Abstract
In 1376 John Arderne, an English surgeon with a special interest in proctology (Fig. 1), wrote this perceptive description of rectal cancer [1]. The stress that he places on the diagnostic value of digital examination, the clarity with which he differentiates the presentation of rectal cancer from that of inflammatory bowel disease, his simple and sensible recommendations for its palliation, his astute observations on its natural history, and the unequivocal recognition of its prognosis give his account the high quality of a classic description of disease.
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Arderne, J.: Treatises of Fistula in Ano and of fistulae in other parts of the body and of apostemes making fistulae, and of haemorrhoids and of tenesmus and of clysters also of certain ointments, powders and oils. Middle English version published in Early English Text Society, Original Series No. 139, 1910. D'Arcy Power, ed. London and Bungay: Richard Clay and Sons Ltd., reprinted at the Oxford: University Press, pp. 37–39. (For clearly written early manuscript versions of this text in English, see Sloane M S 6 and 227 and in Latin Add. 29301 in the British Library.)
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Swain, C.P. A fourteenth-century description of rectal cancer. World J. Surg. 7, 304–307 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01656167
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01656167