Toward the end of the tenth, or at the beginning of the eleventh, century the teaching of medicine at Salerno began to assume the character of regularly organized work. The names of the men and women who conducted it—for there were women as well as men in the corps of teachers—are mentioned in various contemporaneous documents which have come down to our time. They are as follows: Petroncellus, Gariopuntus, Alphanus, Bartholomaeus, Cophon, Trotula, John and Matthew Platearius, Abella, Mercuriade, Costanza Calenda, Rebecca Guarna, Afflacius, Maurus, Musandinus and many others. According to Puschmann, the list of physicians who, during the existence of the Medical School at Salerno,—a period of nearly one thousand years,—acted as teachers in the institution, comprised no less than 340 names. The presence of several women among the instructors of this school, and the great esteem in which they were held by the men of that time, both for their ability as practitioners and for the excellence of the treatises which they wrote, furnish strong confirmation of the statement which Plato makes in his work entitled “The Republic,” and which I have already quoted in one of the earlier chapters, viz.: “For women have as pronounced an aptitude as men for the profession of medicine.” And, if further evidence of the correctness of Plato’s opinion were needed, the success attained by women physicians during the past thirty or forty years in the United States of America might be cited.
To the general statement made above I may with advantage add a few details regarding both the individual physicians at Salerno and the books which they wrote. During recent years, thanks to the researches of Henschel, de Renzi and Piero Giacosa, our knowledge of these matters has been greatly enlarged. In 1837 Henschel found, in the library at Breslau, Germany, a manuscript collection of Salerno medical treatises (“Compendium Salernitanum”) dating back as far as the latter part of the twelfth century of the present era. De Renzi, working in association with Daremberg and Baudry de Balzac, succeeded in collecting from the different libraries of Italy quite a large number of additional Salerno treatises, all of which have since been published under the title “Collectio Salernitana, ossia documenti inediti e trattati di medicina appartenenti alla scuola medica Salernitana” (5 vols., Naples, 1852–1859). Finally, Piero Giacosa has added to this stock of Salerno writings by the publication (Turin, 1901) of a work which bears the title “Magistri Salernitani nondum editi etc.” Beside the treatises to be found in these three collections there is one other which, according to Neuburger, contributed more than all the others combined to the fame of the Medical School of Salerno. The title of this extraordinary work is: “Regimen sanitatis Salernitanum.”
The Salernian writings, it appears, may readily be divided into two groups—those of the earlier and those of the later epoch of this famous school. The treatises which belong to the older epoch are written in the degraded Latin of the Middle Ages, and seem to have been composed entirely for didactic purposes. In the main they are compilations of still earlier Graeco-Latin works, but here and there, especially in the parts which relate to therapeutics, evidences of a certain measure of originality are discoverable. The pathology adopted shows a hodge-podge of the humoral doctrine and that of the Methodists.
The chief representative of this early epoch is Gariopontus (first half of the eleventh century), whose treatise on special pathology and therapeutics—entitled “Passionarius”—was very popular for a long period of years. Next in order comes Petroncellus, whose “Practica” calls for no special comment. Of the works of Alphanus, John Platearius (the elder) and Cophon (the elder), we possess only fragments. Trotula, who lived about 1059 A. D. and was believed to be the wife of John Platearius I., attained greater celebrity than any of those just mentioned. She was related to Roger I., Count of Sicily, and was therefore probably of Norman extraction, and she was considered by her contemporaries to be very learned (“sapiens matrona”).[53] Her writings, which are quite numerous, are frequently quoted by later authors, this being especially true of her work on diseases of women. The four other women who took an active and creditable part in the work of the Salerno Medical School also wrote treatises on various subjects: Abella, on “Black Bile”, (written in verse); Mercuriade, on “Pestilential Fever,” and also on “The Treatment of Wounds”; and Rebecca Guarna, on “Fevers.” In the case of Costanza Calenda, the daughter of the Dean of the medical school and a woman remarkable for her wisdom as well as for her great beauty, no record of the treatises which she wrote appears to have been preserved.
The later epoch of the literature created by the Medical School of Salerno begins about the year 1100 of the present era, after the Latin translations and compilations made by Constantinus the African had taught the physicians who were then at the head of affairs something about the medicine of the Arabs, and had, at the same time, through the latter medium, brought to their attention afresh the teachings and practice of the ancient Greeks.[54] Among the works of the latter character—works which in their Latin dress proved most valuable to the Salerno physicians—are the following: “The Aphorisms of Hippocrates”; “Galen’s Ars Parva” (Mikrotechne); and the same author’s “Commentaries on the Hippocratic Writings.”
John Afflacius, a monk who lived during the latter half of the eleventh century of the present era, was one of the pupils of Constantinus. His treatise “On Fevers,” according to Neuburger, contains ample evidence of the author’s ability as a clinical observer.
Something still remains to be said concerning Bartholomaeus, Cophon the Younger, John Platearius the Younger and Archimathaeus. They have already been mentioned in the list of authors whose writings contributed materially to the celebrity of the Medical School of Salerno, and it is now only necessary to furnish a few particulars with regard to their lives and the nature of the work which they accomplished.
Bartholomaeus wrote a treatise (entitled “Practica”) on the practice of medicine as taught by Hippocrates, Galen, Constantinus and the Greek physicians. Its enduring popularity is evidenced by the facts that it was translated at an early period into several languages and that portions of its text are often quoted by later authors. The book contains ample evidence that its author was a very close observer and a physician who strove to make accurate diagnoses.
Cophon the Younger (about 1100 A. D.) was the author of two works: a treatise on anatomy which bore the title “Anatomia Porci,” and one on the practice of medicine (“Practica”). The ancients, it is stated, selected a pig for purposes of anatomical study “because its internal organs present a very close resemblance to those of the human being.” Both books are written in a clear and simple style.
John Platearius the Younger was the author of a work on internal medicine (“Practica Brevis”) and also of one on the subject of urine (“Regulae Urinarum”).