Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/839

Rh HISTORY.] MEDICINE 807 treatment is dietetic rather than pharmaceutical, though ths art of preparing drugs had_reached a high degree of complexity at Salerno. Anatomy was as little regarded as it was in the later ancient schools, the empiric and methodic, but demonstrations of the parts of the body were given on swine. Although it cannot be said that the science of medicine was advanced at Salerno, still its decline was arrested at a time when every other branch of learning was rapidly falling into decay ; and there can be no doubt that the observation of patients in hospitals, and probably clinical instruction, were made use of in learning and teaching. The school of Salerno thus forms a bridge betwsen the ancient and the modern medicine, more direct though less conspicuous than that circuitous route, through Byz tium, Baghdad, and Cordova, by which Hippocrates and Galen, in Arabian dress, again entered the European world. Though the glory of Salerno had departed, the school actually existed till it was finally dissolved by an edict of the emperor Napoleon I. in the year 1811. Introduction of Arabian Medicine: The Scholastic Period. About the middle of the llth century the Arabian medical writers began to be known by Latin ! translations in the Western world. Constantinus Africanus, a monk, was the author of the earliest of such versions (1050 A.D.) ; his labours were directed chiefly to the less important and less bulky Arabian authors, of whom Haly was the most noted ; the real classics were not intro duced till later. For some time the Salernitan medicine held its ground, and it was not till the conquest of Toledo by Alphonso of Castile that any large number of Western scholars came in contact with the learning of the Spanish Moors, and systematic efforts were made to translate their philosophical and medical works. Jewish scholars, often under the patronage of Christian bishops, were especially active in tha work. In Sicily also the Oriental tendencies of Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick II. worked in the same direction. Gerard of Cremona, a physician of Toledo (1114-87), made translations, it is said by command of Barbarossa, from Avicenna and others. It is needless to point out the influence of the crusades in making Eastern ideas known in the Western world. The in fluence of Arabian medicine soon began to be felt even in the Hippocratic city of Salerno, and in the 13th century is said to have held an even balance with the older medicine. After this time the foreign influence predominated ; and by the time that the Aristotelian dialectic, in the introduction of which the Arabs had so large a share, prevailed in the schools of Europe, the j Arabian version of Greek medicine reigned supreme in j the medical world. That this movement coincided with the establishment of some of the older European univer- j sities is well known. The history of medicine in the period now opening is closely combined with the history of scholastic philosophy. Both were infected with the same dialectical subtlety, which was, from the nature of the subject, especially injurious to medicine. At the same time, through the rise of the universities, medical learning was much more widely diffused, and the first definite forward movement was seen in *,he school of Montpellier, where a medical faculty existed early in the 12th century, afterwards united with faculties of law and philosophy. The medical school owed its foundation largely to Jewish teachers, themselves educated in the Moorish schools of Spain, and imbued with the intellectual independence of the Averroists. Its rising prosperity coin cided with the decline of the school of Salerno. Montpellier became distinguished for the practical and empirical spirit of its medicine, as contrasted with the dogmatic and scholastic teaching of Paris and other universities. In Italy, Bjlogna and Padua were earliest distinguished for medical studies, the former preserving more of the Galenical tradition, the latter being more progressive and Averroist. The northern universities contributed little, the reputation even of Paris being of later growth. The supremacy of Arabian medicine lasted till the revival of learning, when the study of the medical classics in their original language worked another revolution. The medical writers of this period, who chiefly drew from Arabian sources, have been called Arabists (though it is difficult to give any clear meaning to this term), and were afterwards known as the neoterics. The medical literature of this period is extremely voluminous, but essentially second-hand, consisting mainly of commentaries on Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna, and others, or of compilations and compendia still less original than commentaries. Among these may be mentioned the Conciliator of Peter of Abano (1250-1315), the Aggregator of Jacob de Dondi (1298-1359), both of the school of Padua, and the Pandectx Medicines, of the Salernitan Matthseus Sylvaticus (ob. 1342), a sort of medical glossary and dictionary. But for us the most interesting fact is the first appearance of Englishmen as authors of_ medical works having a European reputation, distinguished, accord ing to the testimony of Haeser, by a practical tendency characteristic of v the British race, and fostered in the school of Montpellier. The first of these works is the Compendium JJidi&amp;lt;:insf t also called Laureaor Rosa Anglicana, of Gilbert (Gilbcrtus Anglicus, about 1290), said to contain good observations on leprosy. A more important work, the Practica seu Lilium Medicinse, of Bernard Gordon, a Scottish professor at Montpellier (written in the year 1307), was more widely spread, being translated into French and Hebrew, and printed in several editions. Of these two physicians tho first probably, the latter certainly, was educated and practised abroad, but John Gaddesden, the author of llosa Anglica sen Practica Medicine (between 1305 and 1317), was a graduate in medicine of Merton College, Oxford, and court physician. His compendium is entirely wanting in originality, and perhaps unusually destitute of common sense, but it became so popular as to be reprinted up to the end of the 16th century. Works of this kind became still more abundant in the 14th and in the first half of the 15th century, till the wider distribution of the medical classics in the original put them out of fashion. In surgery this period was far more productive than in medicine, especially in Italy and France, but the limits of our subject only permit us to mention Gulielmus de Saliceto of Piacenza (about 1275), Lanfranchi of Milan (died about 1306), the French surgeon, Guy de Chauliac (about 1350), and the Englishman, John Ardern (about 1350). In anatomy also the beginning of a new epoch was made by Mondino de Liucci, or Mundinus (1275- 1326), and his followers. Some advance was made in chemistry by the celebrated Arnold de Villanova (1235- 1312), whose medical writings (if the Breviarium Practicx be rightly ascribed to him) rise above the rank of compila tions. Finally, in the 13th and especially the 14th century, we find, under the name of consilia, the first medieval reports of medical cases which are preserved in such a form as to be intelligible. Collections of consilia were published, among others, by Gentilis Fulgineus before 1348, by Bartolomeo Montagnana (died in 1470), and by Baverius de Baveriis of Imola (about 1450). The last-named, we can say from experience, contains much that is interesting and readable. Period of the Revival of Learning. The impulse which all departments of intellectual activity received from the revival of Greek literature in Europe was felt by medicine among the rest. Not that the spirit of the science, or of its corresponding practice, was at once changed. Tho