Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/838

Rh 806 MEDICINE [HISTORY. Arabic are enumerated by Wiistenfeld, and other historians have enlarged the list (Haeser), but only three have been printed in the original ; a certain number more are known through old Latin translations, and the great majority still exist in manuscript. It is thus evident that the circum stance of having been translated (which may have been in some cases almost an accident) is what has chiefly de termined the influence of particular writers on Western meiicine. But it is improbable that further research will alter the general estimate of t the value of Arabian medicine. There can be no doubt that it was in the main Greek medicine, modified to suit other climates, habits, and national tastes, and with some important additions from Oriental sources. The greater part is taken from Hippo crates, Galen, Dioscorides, and later Greek writers. The Latin medical writers were necessarily unknown to the Arabs ; and this was partly the cause that even in Europe Galenic medicine assumed such a preponderance, the methodic school and Celsus being forgotten or neglected. In anatomy and physiology the Arabians distinctly went back; in surgery they showed no advance upon the Greeks ; in practical medicine nothing new can be traced, except the description of certain diseases (e.g., small-pox and measles) unknown or imperfectly known to the Greeks ; the only real advance was in pharmacy and the therapeutical use of drugs. By their relations with the further East, the Arabs became acquainted with valuable new remedies which have held their ground till modern times ; and their skill in chemistry enabled them to prepare new chemical remedies, and form many combinations of those already in use. They produced the first pharmacopoeia, and estab lished the first apothecaries shops. Many of the names and many forms of medicines now used, and in fact the general outline of modern pharmacy, except so far as modi fied by modern chemistry, started with the Arabs. Thus does Arabian medicine appear as judged from a modern standpoint ; but to mediaeval Europe, when little but a tradition remained of the great ancient schools, it was invested with a far higher degree of originality and im portance. It is now necessary to consider what was the state of medicine in Europe after the fall of the Western empire and before the influence of Arabian science and literature began to be felt. This we may call the pre-Arabian or Salernitan period. Medicine in the Early Middle Ages : School of Salerno. In medical as in civil history there is no real break. A continuous thread of learning and practice must have con nected the last period of Roman medicine already mentioned with the dawn of science in the Middle Ages. But the intellectual thread is naturally traced with greater difficulty than that which is the theme of civil history ; and in periods such as that from the 5th to the 10th century in Europe it is almost lost. The chief homes of medical as of other learning in these disturbed times were the monasteries. Though the science was certainly not advanced by their labours, it was saved from total oblivion, and many ancient medical works were preserved either in Latin or vernacular versions. The &quot;Anglo-Saxon Lsechdoms&quot; of the llth century, published in the Master of the Rolls series of mediteval chronicles and memorials, admirably illustrate the mixture of migic and superstition with the relics of ancient science which constituted monastic medicine. Simi lar works, in Latin or other languages, exist in manuscript in all the great European libraries. It was among the Benedictines that the monastic study of medicine first re ceived a new direction, and aimed at a higher standard. The study of Hippocrates, Galen, and other classics was recommended by Cassiodorus (Gth century), and in the original mother-abbey of Monte Cassino medicine was studied ; but there was not there what could be called a medical school ; nor had this foundation any connexion (as has been supposed) with the famous school of Salerno. The origin of this, the most important source of medical knowledge in Europe in the early Middle Ages, is involved in obscurity. It is known that Salerno, a Roman colony, in a situation. noted in ancient times for its salubrity, was in the Gth century at least the seat of a bishopric, and at the end of the 7th century of a Benedictine monastery, and that some of the prelates and higher clergy were dis tinguished for learning, and even for medical acquirements. But it has by recent researches been clearly established that the celebrated Schola Salernitana was a purely secular institution. All that can with certainty be said is that a school or collection of schools gradually grew up in which especially medicine, but also, in a subordinate degree, law and philosophy were taught. In the 9th century Salernitan physicians were already spoken of, and the city was known as Cioitas Ilippocratica. A little later we find great and royal personages resorting to Salerno for the restoration of their health, among whom was William of Normandy, afterwards the Conqueror. The number of students of medicine must at one time have been considerable, and in a corresponding degree the number of teachers. Among the latter many were married, and their wives and daughters appear also in the lists of professors. The most noted female professor was the celebrated Trotula in the llth century. The Jewish element appears to have been im portant among the students, and possibly among the professors. The reputation of the school was great till the 12th or 13th century, when the introduction of the Arab medicine was gradually fatal to it. The foundation of the university of Naples, and the rise of Montpellier, also contributed to its decline. The teachings of the Salernitan doctors are pretty well known through existing works, some of which have only recently been discovered and published. The best-known is the anonymous rhyming Latin poem on health, Regimen Sanitatis Salerni, professedly written for the use of the William the Conqueror; it had an immense reputation in the Middle Ages, and was afterwards many times printed, and translated into most European languages. This was a popular work intended for the laity ; but there are others strictly professional. Among the writers it may be sufficient to mention here Gariopontus ; Copho, who wrote the Anatome Porci, a well-known mediaeval book ; Joannes Platearius, first of a family of physicians bearing the same name, whose Practice^ or medical compendium, was after wards several times printed ; and Trotula, believed to be the wife of the last-named. All of these fall into the first period before the advent of Arabian medicine. In the transitional period, when the Arabian school began to influ ence European medicine, but before the Salernitans were superseded, comes Nicolaus Prsepositus, who wrote the Antidotarium, a collection of formula? for compound medi cines, which became the standard work on the subject, and the foundation of many later compilations. An equally popular writer was Gilles de Corbeil (yEgidius Corboliensis), at one time a teacher at Salerno, afterwards court physician to Philip Augustus of France, who composed several poems in Latin hexameters on medical subjects. Two of them, on the urine and the pulse respectively, attained the position of medical classics. None of these Salernitan works rise much above the rank of compilations, being founded on Hippocrates, Galen, and later Greek writers, with an unmistakable mixture of the doctrines of the methodists. But they often show much practical experience, and exhibit the naturalistic method of the Hippocratic school. The general plan of
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