The origin of this celebrated mediæval institution is involved in obscurity; it has been generally understood to have sprung from the monastery of Monte Cassino, founded by St. Benedict in the sixth century. St. Benedict probably possessed some medical knowledge, and it is certain that many of his order did. The Benedictines had houses in La Cava and Salerno. The legends of the wonderful cures wrought by St. Benedict would naturally attract crowds of sufferers to the doors of the learned and charitable monks. There would consequently be abundant opportunities for the study of diseases and their remedies; and though there was probably little enough of what could strictly be called scientific medical practice, there was doubtless as much effort to cure or mitigate suffering as was consistent with the rule of a learned religious order. Some writers think that the famous school of Salerno existed as early as the seventh century, that Greek thought and traditions lingered there long after they had ceased to exist in other parts of Italy; and they argue that as it was, as is now clearly shown, a purely secular institution, it was independent in origin and constitution of any monastic connection. Others maintain that it was founded by the Arabs; but, as Daremberg points out,[743] the first invasions of the Saracens in Sicily and Italy, dating from the middle of the ninth century, had for their objects simply pillage and slaughter; and there is nothing whatever to show in the whole course of their devastations the slightest desire to found literary or scientific institutions. The Saracens never sojourned at Salerno, and before the end of the eleventh century there is no trace of Arabian medicine in the works written by the great teachers of Salerno. It is as unnecessary as it is unjust to seek any other origin for the Salernian school than that of the Benedictines of Monte Cassino.[744] Bede, Cuthbert, Auperth, and Paul were brought up at that monastery, and we know that medicine was always cultivated to a certain extent in those ancient abodes of learning and religion. As Balmez says concerning Monte Cassino,[745] “the sons of the most illustrious families of the empire are seen to come from all parts to that monastery; some with the intention of remaining there for ever, others to receive a good education, and some to carry back to the world a recollection of the serious inspirations which the holy founder had received at Subiaco.” It seems, therefore, that the origin of the medical school of Salerno was somewhat on this wise: a lay spirit of science was developed, and many young men having no aptitude for the monastic life, but desirous to devote themselves entirely to the healing art as an honourable and lucrative profession, doubtless desired to form themselves into a society or school for this end; they would receive encouragement from their more liberal and enlightened monastic teachers to settle in a beautiful and healthy resort of invalids such as Salerno had long been considered, and to pursue their medical studies under the supervision of the men most competent to instruct them. Dr. Puschmann, quoting from S. de Renzi,[746] states that in documents of the years 848 and 855, Joseph and Joshua are named as doctors practising there. The Lombard Regenifrid lived there in the year 900; he was physician to Prince Waimar of Salerno. Fifty years later the doctor Petrus was raised to the bishopric of Salerno. Many doctors of this time were clerics, but there were also many who were Jews.[747] This ancient people, hated and persecuted in every other relation of life, were popular as physicians in the Middle Ages. The books studied and expounded were Hippocrates and Galen, which were translated into Latin before A.D. 560.[748]
Its cosmopolitan sentiments probably gave rise to the story that is told in an ancient Salernian chronicle, rediscovered by S. de Renzi, to the effect that the school was founded by four doctors; namely, the Jewish Rabbi Elinus, the Greek Pontus, the Saracen Adala, and a native of Salerno, who each lectured in his native tongue.[749]
It is said that Charlemagne in 802 A.D. greatly encouraged this Salerno school by ordering Greek works of medicine to be translated from the Arabic into Latin. Salernum, in consequence of the medical and public instructions given by the monks in the neighbouring monastery, became known as a civitas Hippocratica.[750]
Bertharius, abbot from 856, was a very learned man; and it is stated that there are still in existence two manuscripts of his which contain a collection of hygienic and medicinal rules and prescriptions.[751]
Alphanus (SECUNDUS) (flourished about 1050), a distinguished monastic philosopher and theologian, wrote a treatise on The Union of the Soul and Body, and another on The Four Humours. He carried with him, when he removed to Florence, many manuscripts and a great quantity of medicines. During the eleventh century Salerno rose to great importance, not only from its situation as a port from which the Crusaders departed to the wars, but from the daily widening influence of its medical school.
Petrocellus wrote on the practice of medicine about 1035; he was the author of the Compendium of Medicine. Gariopontus (died before 1056) wrote a work entitled Passionarius Galeni. These are the two most ancient works of this school which have reached our times, says Daremberg. The medicine of Salerno before the year 1050 was a combination of methodism in its doctrines and of Galenisms in its prescriptions.[752] We find, says Baas,[753] in Gariopontus the first intimation of the inhalation of narcotic vapours in medicine, while the ancients could only produce anæsthesia by compression and the internal use of such drugs as mandragora and belladonna. Herodotus says[754] that the Scythians used the vapour of hemp seed to intoxicate themselves by inhaling it, but this was not for medicinal purposes.
Desiderius was abbot of Salerno, and afterwards became Pope Victor III. in 1085. He is said to have been medicinæ peritissimus.[755]
About this time flourished Constantine, the Carthaginian Christian, whose fame was European, and who finally placed Salerno in the front as a great and specialized public school of medicine. He travelled far in the East, and is said to have learned mathematics, necromancy, and the sciences in Babylon. He visited India and Egypt, and when he returned to Carthage he was the most learned man of his time in all that related to medical science. Naturally he was suspected of witchcraft, and he fled for refuge to Salerno. Robert Guiscard the Norman held him in the highest favour, and under his protection he published many works of medicine of his own, and made many translations of medical books from the Arabic. He ultimately retired to the monastery of Monte Cassino, where he died in 1087. We may safely date the establishment of the splendid reputation of the Salerno school from the time of his settlement there.[756]
Daremberg does not allow that the influence of Constantine was so great as is generally supposed. He points out that it was not in the middle of the eleventh but at the end of the twelfth century that Arabian medicine was substituted in the school of Salerno, as in the West generally, for the Græco-Latin. And it is perfectly true that if we examine the medical writings of this period we find very little progress from the times of the ancients, except in pharmacy and the knowledge of drugs and their properties. Daremberg’s researches go to prove that many of Constantine’s works, previously supposed to have been original, were but cunningly disguised translations from the Arabic. By altering the phraseology, and suppressing such proper names as would have led to suspicion of the origin of his treatises, he obtained credit for a great mass of literary work which had really another source.[757]
Jean Afflacius, a disciple of Constantine, wrote The Golden Book on the Treatment of Diseases, and another work On the Treatment of Fevers.[758] Daremberg says that these works of Afflacius show no more traces of Arabian influence than the works of his contemporaries.