for one reason or another, preferred to remain in the old capital, continued to do so after it became known that the Barbarians were approaching the city. But the migration of these physicians to the new capital did not mean a renewal there of the scientific activity which had characterized the growth of Greek medicine in Rome during the first two centuries of the Christian Era. It is probable that the fugitives, being obliged to travel with the smallest amount of baggage possible, left the major part of their books and papyrus rolls behind, hoping, no doubt, that they might be able at some later date to recover them. But the favorable occasion never arrived, and thus a great deal of valuable medical literature entirely disappeared. The loss, however, might have been even more serious than it was if the Christian church had not already (during the third century) begun to establish monasteries in secluded and inaccessible spots. It was to these institutions that not only books of a religious character, but also those relating to the science of medicine, were transported for safe keeping during the early Middle Ages. Farther on, I shall have occasion to refer to this subject again and to discuss more fully certain other benefits which accrued to medical science from these monastic institutions.
But while, on the one hand, the Christian church through the instrumentality of the monasteries was lending its aid to the preservation of the sources of medical knowledge, it was, on the other, doing its best to arrest all further evolution of that branch of science; not consciously, it must be admitted, but through a mistaken sense of its duty to God. Thus it came about that the Emperor Justinian I. (527-567 A. D.), acting under the narrow-minded advice of his ecclesiastical counsellors, closed the medical schools at Athens and Alexandria and at the same time withdrew the regular allowance of money which up to that time had been paid to the state physicians and to special scholars. A few years later, however (i.e., in the early part of the seventh century A. D.), some of the more highly educated physicians of Alexandria got together and made the attempt to organize a school of medicine in that city. A
