Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/211

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 189 moment the curiosity of the reader. I. Of the learned faculties school of jurisprudence implies the previous establishment of laws and property ; and theology may perhaps be superseded by the full light of religion and reason. But the savage and the sage must alike implore the assistance of physic ; and, if our diseases are inflamed by luxury, the mischiefs of blows and wounds would be more frequent in the ruder ages of society. The treasures of Grecian medicine had been communicated to the Arabian colonies of Africa, Spain, and Sicily ; and in the intercourse of peace and war a spark of knowledge had been kindled and cherished at Salerno, an illustrious city, in which the men were honest and the women beautiful. ^'^ A school, the first that arose in the darkness of Europe, was consecrated to the healing art ; ^'^ the conscience of monks and bishops were reconciled to that salutary and lucrative profession ; and a crowd of patients, of the most eminent rank and most distant climates, invited or visited the physicians of Salerno. They were protected bj' the Norman conquerors ; and Guiscard, though bred in arms, could discern the merit and value of a philosopher. After a pilgrimage of thirty-nine years, Constantine, an African Christian, returned from Bagdad, a master of the language and learning of the Arabians ; and Salerno was enriched by the practice, the lessons Republica Amalphitana, and de Amalphi a Pisanis direpta, which are built on the testimonies of one hundred and forty writers. Yet he has forgotten two most im- portant passages of the embassy of Liutprand (a. D. 969), which compare the trade and navigation of Amalphi with that of Venice. ''I Urbs Latii non est hac delitiosior urbe, Frugibus arboribus vinoquc redundat ; et unde Non tibi poma, nuces, non pulchra palatia desunt, Non species muliebris abest probitasque virorum. (Gulielmus Appulus, 1. iii. p. 267.) [It has been commonly maintained that the medical school of Salerno owed its rise and development to Arabic influence. This view seems to be mistaken ; documents published in Ue Renzi's Collcctio Saleniilana (1852) seem decidedly against it. See Mr. Rashdall's Universities in the Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 78 (chap. 3, p. 75 sqq. is devoted to Salerno). Mr. Raslidall is inclined to connect the revival of medical science in the nth century at Salerno with the survival of the Greek language in those regions. Salerno went back to Hippocrates independently of .Arabia ; and it was when the Arabic methods in medicine became popular in the 13th century that the Salerno school declined.] ''^ [At the beginning of the 12th cent. Ordericus Vitalis describes the medical school of Salerno as existing ab antiquo tempore (Hist. Ecc. ii., Bk. 3, 11 in Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. 188, p. 260) ; see Rashdall, p. 77. The place was famous for its physicians in the loth cent., and we have works of medical writers of Salerno from the early part of the nth [e.g., Gariopontus). The fullest account of the school is De Renzi's Sloria documentata della scuola medica di Salerno. The school was first recognized by Frederick H., whose edict in 1231 appointed it as the examining body for candidates who desired to obtain the royal licence which he made compulsory for the practice of medicine]