“He shall be entitled to five sous for operating on hard cataract.
“If a physician wound a gentleman by bleeding, he shall be condemned to pay a fine of one hundred sous; and should the gentleman die following the operation, the physician must be delivered into the hands of the dead man’s relatives, who may deal with the doctor as they see fit.
“When a physician has a student he shall be allowed twelve sous for his services as tutor.”
Towards the tenth century, however, progress in medicine is at last noticeable. We see some monks going to make their studies at Salerno and at Mount Cassin, where the Benedictine friars had established a medical college in the previous century. Constantine had given these friars Arabian manuscripts, which had been translated into Latin, with commentaries. Also the works of the early Greek physicians and the treatises of Aristotle on “Natural Science.” It was at Salerno that Ægidius de Corbeil studied physic before becoming physician to Philip Augustus. Nevertheless, medicine remained in darkness with clerical ignorance, the superstition and despotism of the church offering an insurmountable barrier to all science. Finally a reform was instituted in 1206 by the foundation of the University of Paris, which included among its school of learning a college of medicine, wherein many students matriculated. The physicus Hugo, and Obiso, physician to Louis the Great, were the first professors in the institution. Degrees were accorded indiscriminately to the clergy or to the laity, the condition of celibacy being imposed on the latter likewise.
A medical and surgical service was organized at the Hotel Dieu, which hospital was erected before the entrance of Notre Dame, under the direction of the clergy. On certain days the priests would assemble around the holy water font of the cathedral, supra cupam, in order to discuss questions in medicine or the connection of scholastic learning with the healing art.
The University only recognized as students of medicine persons who held the degree of master-in-arts. They absolutely separated the meges and mires, surgeons, bonesetters, and barbers, who had made no classical studies, and to whom was abandoned as unworthy of the real physicians all that concerned minor surgery. These officers of health, so-called, of the Middle Ages were unimportant and little respected persons; they kept shops and never went out without carrying one or two dressing cases; they were only comparable to drug peddlers; and the University imposed no vows of celibacy in their case.
In many literary works in Latin it is often a question whether to call in a physician or mire, and certain passages admirably serve to prove this historical fact. In the Roman de Dolopatos,[2] for example, the poet tells how to prevent the poisoning of wounds, as they are easy to cure when the injury is recent:
You have heard it told
To dress a wound while new;
’Tis hard to heal when old.