ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a case of therapeutic failure for a facial wound in 1353 in the City of London. It explains why a therapeutic failure may have occurred based on consideration of a number of contemporary surgical texts and the evidence of fourteenth-century coroners' reports. The texts have been available to John le Spicer in 1353 were translations into Anglo-Norman of established surgical authorities which included instructions for treating wounds. In addition, surgeons treated skin wounds that resulted from blunt trauma, burns and fractures all of which, then as now, can progress to ulcers, abscesses and fistulae. The case of Thomas de Shene illustrates the complexity of and types of medicines used for surgical practice in medieval England. In the middle ages the word placebo was familiar from parts of the medieval liturgy: Geoffrey Chaucer in his Merchant's Tale gave the flattering brother of January the name Placebo.
