through more than 240 editions, and was translated into nearly every civilised language. It consisted originally of about 360 irregularly rhymed hexameters, or "Leonine" verses, and was dedicated to Robert of Normandy, son of the Conqueror, who stayed at Salerno to be healed of a wound in his arm. In it we find the entire popular and proverbial medicine of the age, some of which still survives. Here, for instance, is the politer original of Longfellow's "Joy, temperance, and repose, slam the door on the doctor's nose". "Si tibi deficiant medici, medici tibi fiant Hæc tria, mens hilaris, requies, moderata diæta.” The virtue of cleanliness is highly valued: "Si fore vis sanus, ablue sæpe manus," and nothing could be better than the advice: "Non bibe ni sitias, et non comedas saturatus ". Constantine the African, " Orientis et Occidentis Magister novusque effulgens Hippocrates," as his admiring biographer calls him, came to Salerno about 1075, bringing with him all the learning of the East; but he soon retired to the monastery of Monte Cassino, where he wrote medical works which still further increased his renown till they were found to be for the most part translations from Isaac Judæus and Haly Abbas, those parts only being omitted which might betray their Arabic origin. It is, however, not impossible that Constantine acted under pressure from his abbot, Desiderius, afterwards Pope Victor III., who may have preferred a slight sacrifice of truth to the scandal of permitting avowed translations from paynim writers to issue from his monastery. Constantine's influence upon the school does not appear to have been great, for the Salernitans prided themselves on being the direct inheritors of the classical physicians, and refused to accept the Arabic doctrines even in a concealed form. But they adopted many of the new Eastern drugs, and the chief effect of Constantine's translations is seen in the great attention paid to materia medica during the twelfth century. The works of Nicholas Præpositus (1100) and Matthew Platearius (1140) formed the pharmacopoeias of the middle ages, and in the Circa Instans of the latter we find the first Latin descriptions of two interesting, though very different drugs, mercury and mumia. "Mercury (he declares) is hot and moist in the fourth degree, but some say it is cold in the fourth degree. It is used in ointments for scabies, pediculi capitis, and eruptions on the face; its fumes are highly injurious, and may cause paralysis and even death." Mumia, according to Constantine, is hot and dry in the fourth degree. It is found in tombs, for the ancients preserved their dead with balsam and myrrh, as is still done by the heathens of Babylon. Mumia acts as an astringent in hæmorrhage and dysentery, and assists the healing of ulcers." 66 In his Antidotarium, Nicholas Præpositus quotes what he calls an ancient poem on weights and measures, which was probably the first thing the Salernitan medical student had to 'get up," and which is so interesting from its partial correspondency with our modern weights, as well as such a brilliant example of "Leonine" verse, that I venture to give the original. "Collige triticeis medicinæ pondera granis. Grana quater quinque scrupuli pro pondere pone. Or, in shorter and more prosaic English, 20 grains I scruple, 3 scruples 1 drachm, 11⁄2 drachms I solidus, hexagius, BERNARD.-ÆGIDIUS. 189 or aureus, 9 drachms 1 ounce, 12 ounces I pound, 24 pounds I sextarius or cotyla, half a cotyla 1 hemina, half a scruple I obol. 66 Commentaries on the Salernitan pharmacopoeias were written by two French members of the school, Bernard of Provence, and Gilles (Ægidius) of Corbeil, afterwards physician to Philip Augustus, who both studied there towards the close of the twelfth century. The former gives us many curious glimpses of the beliefs and practices of the age. "Antimony with raw egg is good for cough. The Salernitan ladies fumigate themselves with antimony." "Coral. -If any one has palpitation at night, which often occurs after hot food, let him put a coral in his mouth, and he will be at once cured. This is why the Hospitallers and Templars carry a piece of coral in their belts." Cubebs cure drunkenness, and prevent the breath smelling the next morning; never take more than five berries at once." "Cyclamen.I, Magister Bernardus, of Provence, gave the juice of cyclamen to a friend with a quartan ague, and by God's grace he was cured." 'Warmth is the principle of life. My master, Salernus, cured his squire (armigerum), who was nearly killed by a fall, by burying him in a dungheap up to his neck. He would also have recovered had he been put in the belly of a recently-killed animal, such as an ox or horse." "If a man is bitten by a mad dog, immediately put some of its hair on the bite, or make the dog, or some part of him, into a plaster." 66 Egidius of Corbeil versified the Salernitan materia medica, and wrote two other poems on pulses and urines respectively, based upon the above-mentioned treatises of Theophilus Protospatharius. He tells us that he has chosen the poetic form because it favours brevity and prevents alteration by copyists, and the two poems certainly give a remarkably clear and condensed account of the Galenic and mediæval doctrine on those matters. The following is a brief abstract of his work on "the pulse," which he says may be considered from five points of view, and presents ten varieties: E. With regard to rhythm and § 9. equal or unequal. regularity. 10. regular or irregular. Most of these varieties occur in health as well as disease, and they then indicate the person's temperament: thus a large pulse shows a man prodigal, unstable, fond of praise, ambitious, open-hearted, and hot-spirited. A "cold" pulse is a sign of death; "wherefore (says a commentator) I do not advise the physician to stay with a patient when he finds such a pulse, for then cross and candles, ashes and shroud and holy water have their place". The goat-like or dicrotic pulse may be normal, but is most commonly found in continued fevers. The ant and worm-like pulses (p. formicans et vermiculosus) are faithful heralds of death and smell of the sepulchre (mortis præcones fidi redolentque sepulchrum), except in cases of fainting, when they are commonly without danger. When his subject permits it, Ægidius can write very fair verses, as, for instance, his lament over the sack of Salerno. In the year 1194 a terrible blow fell upon the Hippocratic city. The Emperor Henry VI. used the money obtained for the ransom of Richard Lion-heart to conquer South Italy, which he claimed in right of his wife. He bore a special grudge against Salerno, which was taken by storm, and delivered over to the untender mercies of a mediæval soldiery. The wives and daughters of the professors are said to have THE LADIES OF SALERNO. 191 been sold by public auction, and exile, captivity and the sword deprived the city of half its inhabitants. The decline thus begun was hastened in the next century by the establishment of rival schools at Naples and Palermo, and by the rise of the northern universities, and, except through the production of one or two distinguished surgeons, Salerno is no longer of any account in medical history. NOTE. The substance of this chapter is derived mainly from De Renzi, Collectio Salernitana, Naples, 1852, five vols.; Platearius, Practica Circa Instans, Venice, 1497, and Egidii Corboliensis, Carmina Medica, Leipsic, 1826. See also Daremberg, L'Ecole de Salerne in his La Médecine Histoire et Doctrines, Paris, 1865; Bécavin, L'Ecole de Salerne et les Médecins Salernitains, Paris, 1888. XXXV. THE LADIES OF SALERNO. THE above is more courteous translation of mulieres Salernitana, a phrase of very frequent occurrence in the writings of the Salernitan masters, and usually introducing an account of some form of treatment employed either by the women of Salerno generally, or by particular ladies connected with the medical school, some of whom are mentioned by name. Magister Bernardus is especially fond of referring to "the ladies of Salerno," and it may be of one of them that he quotes, apropos of the virtues of the load-stone, the pretty line Ut ferrum magnes, juvenes sic attrahit Agnes. They were sometimes not above practical jokes. "The ladies of Salerno," says Bernard, "sprinkle roses with powdered euphorbium and give them to young men to smell, whereupon they instantly begin to sneeze." Here are some of his other references. "The Salernitan ladies, when they have long mourned for their dead friends, take a young pig's heart, stuff it with spices, and bake it in paste, then they eat it and at once forget their sorrow; but men do not eat ani |