If thou to health and vigor would'st attain,
Shun mighty cares; all anger deem profane;
From heavy suppers and much wine abstain;
Nor trivial count it after pompous fare
To rise from table and to take the air.
Shun idle noonday slumbers, nor delay
The urgent calls of nature to obey.
These rules if thou wilt follow to the end,
Thy life to greater length thou may'st extend."
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the glory of the School of Salerno reached its zenith; it was the most famous school of medicine in Europe, and was fostered by various kings. The celebrated Jew, Benjamin of Tudela, traveling from Spain to India, visited Salernum in 1164, and called it the "principal university of Christendom." Early in the twelfth century flourished Cophon, Archimatheus, and Nicholas, surnamed Præpositus, all of whom were distinguished teachers. The latter published a work known as Antidotarium, which was for several centuries the standard pharmacopoeia, and which contained a table of weights that corresponded very closely to those of the modern apothecary. The younger Cophon, who has been confounded with his father (as both seem to have written extensively), wrote two treatises,—one on the anatomy of the hog, the other entitled Ars Medendi. The first is interesting as the only anatomical treatise of this school which has been preserved, and is an index of the degradation of anatomical science of that time.