A HISTORY OF MEDICINE,
ing school of Naples and to the newly established universities of
Montpellier and Bologna, although it lingered on, in name at
least, until it was finally closed by Napoleon in 1811. Not a
trace of its existence is to be found in Salerno to-day.1
Salerno owed much to Duke Robert Guiscard, the Norman
knight who captured the town in A.D. 1075, after a siege of eight
months, and who made it his capital and a great centre of trade
and of culture.
For our scanty knowledge of the teachers of Salerno we are
indebted to the researches of De Renzi, who published all the
available information and manuscripts.2 One of the earliest
Salernitan masters was GARIOPONTUS (d. 1050), of whose life little
is known. His Passionarius, a textbook of medicine, enjoyed a
wide vogue, though it was mainly derived from Greek writings.
Rashdall calls it " a compilation with an earlier tradition behind
it." Gariopontus disregarded mystical medicine, but he quotes
freely from Hippocrates, whom he highly revered.
Another textbook was the Practica of BARTHOLOMEW ANGLIGUS,
in which stress was laid upon the pulse and the urine in diagnosis,
and upon venesection and diet as means of treatment.
BARTHOLOMEW the Englishman was the author of a popular
encyclopaedia, De Proprietatibw Rerum, which was a widely read
book of popular information during the Middle Ages, and which
gives a clear picture of the life and learning of the time (thirteenth
century)3 (Plate xxi). It was translated into English by John of
Trevisa in 1397. The edition edited by Wynkyn de Worde, which
appeared in 1495, was one of the finest and earliest books to be
printed in England. A subsequent edition by Berthelet (1535)5
is well known to bibliophiles,4
Of greater interest are the women doctors who taught in
this progressive school. Here again we enter the realm of legend,
as it is not certain whether the " ladies of Salerno ** were anything
more than nurses and midwives.6 Of them we know little more
than their attractive names : Trotula, Abelia, Rebecca, Con-
1 0. Daremberg, "De P<£cote de Salerne,"in La Marine* Hktofa tt Dotftws> 1865,
P> **3
* S. De Renzi, Storm docmenteta ddla Scuola Medica di SoUrm^ 1875, 2nd, ed*» 5 vols.
* J- J. Walsh, Medieval Mediwc> rgao, p, 193
4 R» Steele, Meduval Lore /torn Barth&lmaats Anglicus* ICing*s Classics, 1907
* H, P, Bayon, " Trotula and the Ladies of Salerno/* Pnc. tog. $t>c* M«d> (Sect, Hist),
1940, vol. xxxiii, p, 471; £* G, Hturd Mead, A ttistoy qf Wmtn in Mtdww*, Haddan,
Conn., 1938, p, 127
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