Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/285

 At Salerno the anatomical demonstration made, apparently only once a year, for the benefit of the students, consisted in exposing to view the abdominal viscera of the pig and commenting upon the features which distinguish them from the same organs in the human body. In the "Regimen Sanitatis" only eight lines of text are devoted to anatomy.

In section IV., which relates to physiology, the text is more instructive and entertaining, but still—as compared with the splendid work accomplished by Galen—extremely incomplete and superficial.

In the early part of the twelfth century, Nicolaus Praepositus composed, at the request of his colleagues in the school of Salerno, an "Antidotarium"—that is, a collection of formulae for combining together, in a single pharmaceutical preparation, various drugs, both those commonly employed in that part of Europe and others which were then known only to the Arabian physicians. This book of formulae, containing as it did descriptions of the effects which might be expected from the different preparations, and furnishing instructions with regard to the proper mode of employing them, served its purpose admirably, not only in Salerno but throughout Europe, at least during the Middle Ages. All the pharmacopoeias of a later date were based upon his "Antidotarium," and indirectly upon the still earlier celebrated treatises written by Matthew Platearius and bearing the titles "Glossae" and "Circa instans" (also that of "De simplici medicina"). The most remarkable item, however, which is to be found in the Antidotarium is that in which mention is made of the use of soporific sponges ("spongia soporifera"), for anaesthetizing purposes by means of inhalations, in certain surgical procedures. (Neuburger.) They were made by impregnating the sponges thoroughly with the juices of narcotic plants (opium, hyoscyamus, mandragora, lactuca, cicuta, etc.), drying them, and putting them aside until they were actually needed. Then the sponge was saturated for