It is believed by some authorities that at Monte Cassino medicine was taught to laymen as well as to those who were preparing to become members of the Benedictine Order of monks. It is not likely, however, that this was done to any great extent, as much better facilities for acquiring knowledge of medicine were available at Salerno in the near neighborhood.
In some parts of Gaul, in the early Middle Ages, physicians received very little consideration; indeed, to us moderns it seems strange that any one should have possessed sufficient courage to accept the responsibility of prescribing for a member of one of the royal families. It is related by Neuburger, on the authority of Gregory of Tours’ History of the Franks, that when Austrichildis, the wife of King Guntram (sixth century A. D.), was ill with the plague and perceived that her death was near at hand, she sent for her husband and extracted from him a promise that he would behead the two physicians, Nicolaus and Donatus, who had treated her and whose prescriptions had failed to effect a cure. Her wish was carried out, in order—as the statement reads—“that her Majesty might not enter the Realm of the Dead entirely alone.” Many centuries later, however, when civilization had certainly advanced far beyond the stage which it had reached in Gaul in the sixth century of the present era, there were instances in which able and conscientious physicians were subjected to equally cruel treatment for their failure to effect a cure.
It was at about this same period, as is amply verified by the statements made by Bishop Gregory of Tours, that faith in the power of saintly relics to heal diseases became almost universal. So great was the effect produced upon the minds of the people by the public display of these objects—bones of saints, portions of their grave-stones, etc.—that a large number of marvelous cures were reported as the result of such displays; and doubtless—so great is the power of suggestion over the human mind—many of these reports were true. A century later (673–735 A. D.), the Venerable Bede, author of the famous work entitled “Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation,” gave, in the course of his narrative, an account of a case of aphasia in which “a remarkable cure was effected”; and, although he mentions a course of “systematic exercises in speaking” as the means used to effect that cure, he attributes it to supernatural causes and not to the practical treatment adopted. He also describes some of the epidemics of his time, and gives most interesting though brief accounts of the methods of treatment employed by the priests and the monks.
During the ninth and tenth centuries, as we learn from the very full descriptions given by Neuburger in his History of Medicine, much zeal was manifested by the monks at St. Gall in Switzerland, at Reichenau in Saxony, and at Fulda, in Hesse Nassau, in the study of the different branches of knowledge, medicine included. The following are the names of those monks who attained the greatest distinction in this work: Hrabanus Maurus, Abbot of the Fulda Monastery, afterward Archbishop of Mayence, and the author of an encyclopaedia in which the science of medicine receives quite full consideration; and Walahfrid Strabo, a pupil of Maurus, Abbot of Reichenau, and the author of a treatise in verse on medicinal plants.
CHAPTER XXI
MEDICAL INSTRUCTION AT SALERNO, ITALY, IN THE MIDDLE AGES
The date of origin of the Medical School at Salerno is not known, but such evidence as we possess shows without a doubt that already in the earliest part of the Middle Ages some sort of facilities for studying medicine were provided in that little town—the Civitas Hippocratica, as it was called at a later period. It seems to be the general impression, says Daremberg, that during those early centuries only ignorance and superstition prevailed in Italy and Gaul; in other words, that all desire for scientific research had vanished, and that there no longer existed such a thing as the regular practice of medicine. This impression, he adds, is erroneous. History shows that schools modeled after those established by the Merovingian and Carlovingian kings (448–639 A. D.), existed up to as recent a date as the middle of the seventh century, and that subsequently the bishops organized the teaching in such a manner that it should be entirely under their control. As time went on, however, the schools assumed a more public character, although the actual teaching was still carried on in the cloisters and church edifices. It is well known, furthermore, that the chief of the Ostrogoths, Visigoths and Lombards—the so-called Barbarians, who at that time occupied these parts of Europe as conquerors—showed themselves on many an occasion to be the enlightened protectors of public instruction and the enthusiastic admirers of classical literature and science.
At Milan there is preserved a manuscript which furnishes satisfactory proof that the writings of Hippocrates and Galen were made the subject of public teaching at Ravenna toward the end of the eighth century of the present era.... And the transcribing of medical manuscripts was known to be carried on at the Monastery of St. Gall, in Switzerland, during the eighth century.... It is plain, therefore, that throughout those extensive regions which previously had formed a part of the Roman Empire, but which during the Middle Ages were under the dominion of Barbarian kings, there was never an entire lack of physicians, or of medical knowledge, or of facilities for teaching medicine. (Daremberg.)
In the light of these statements it is easy to believe that the original development of the Medical School at Salerno was a perfectly natural event like that of the founding of any of the medical schools of a more recent date. The remarkably healthy and singularly attractive character of the spot where the town of Salerno is located; the proximity of mineral springs; the comparatively short distance which separated it from such important centres of population as Naples and the cities of the Island of Sicily, and from the famous Benedictine Monasteries at La Cava, Beneventum and Monte Cassino; and the circumstance that a Ducal Court was established there—all these are facts which amply explain both why a medical school was founded here rather than at some other spot, and why physicians of exceptional ability were easily induced to make the place their home. At no time in the history of the school, it is important to state, do the church authorities appear to have been in control of its affairs. At most, one or two of the monks seem to have taken part in the teaching for limited periods of time; but in its main characteristics the school may truthfully be described as an institution created and managed by physicians for the advancement of medical science and the best interests of the profession as a whole.[52]
The organization of hospitals and their utilization for purposes of clinical instruction must have been the most important events which followed next in order. It is only upon this assumption that we can satisfactorily explain why, for many years in succession, physicians traveled all the way from France, Germany and England to Salerno. They were eager to gain additional knowledge of medicine, and clinical instruction afforded the only sure way of obtaining it; but instruction of this kind was nowhere else to be obtained at that remote period, and consequently men of this earnest and ambitious stamp were compelled to make the long journey and to incur the expense and the risk incident to such a trip. As a further evidence of the value which the physicians of the later Middle Ages set upon the writings of the teachers at Salerno, the fact deserves to be mentioned that, toward the end of the twelfth century and all through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, these works were frequently quoted.
But the ability and learning of the Salerno physicians were highly appreciated by the public at large as well as by their confrères in other lands; for many people of wealth and of high social standing visited Salerno for the purpose of consulting them. Among the number were Adalberon, Bishop of Verdun, France, who journeyed thither in 984 A. D., but failed to obtain the relief which he required; Desiderius, the Abbot of Monte Cassino; Bohemund, the son of Duke Robert Guiscard; and William the Conqueror, afterward King of England. The two last named remained for some time in Salerno, in order to secure needed treatment for the wounds which they had received in battle.