Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/100

84 84 A Short History of Nursing and that through it flowed that eleventh century revival of medicine in Europe which produced the famous medical schools in the universities of Bologna, Naples, and Padua, in Italy, and Mont- peUier, in France. There the works of the Greek masters were studied, and great freedom of scien- tific inquiry prevailed. Perhaps the best proof of the advanced liberaHty of, especially, these ItaHan medical schools is that their doors were open to women. Many women then became distinguished in medicine, for example, Trotula (1059) who wrote books on medical specialties. In northern countries the progress of medicine was more difficult. There the great universities grew out of the guilds and student bodies, inspired largely by the brilHant intellect of Abelard (1079- 1142), but theology long remained dominant in Paris and in English universities, and though the fine arts expanded and flourished, there was little freedom for medicine. The church disapproved of dissections and discouraged surgery. Edicts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Hmiting the surgical practice of the monks, had resulted in the creation of the barber-surgeon caste, which had a long and difficult struggle to gain headway. Then Saint Louis founded a college of surgeons, and by 1268 there were master-surgeons. The