made the subject of public teaching at Ravenna toward the end of the eighth century of the present era. . . . And the transcribing of medical manuscripts was known to be carried on at the Monastery of St. Gall, in Switzerland, during the eighth century. . . . It is plain, therefore, that throughout those extensive regions which previously had formed a part of the Roman Empire, but which during the Middle Ages were under the dominion of Barbarian kings, there was never an entire lack of physicians, or of medical knowledge, or of facilities for teaching medicine. (Daremberg.)
In the light of these statements it is easy to believe that
the original development of the Medical School at Salerno
was a perfectly natural event like that of the founding of
any of the medical schools of a more recent date. The
remarkably healthy and singularly attractive character of
the spot where the town of Salerno is located; the proximity
of mineral springs; the comparatively short distance which
separated it from such important centres of population as
Naples and the cities of the Island of Sicily, and from the
famous Benedictine Monasteries at La Cava, Beneventum
and Monte Cassino; and the circumstance that a Ducal
Court was established there—all these are facts which
amply explain both why a medical school was founded here
rather than at some other spot, and why physicians of
exceptional ability were easily induced to make the place
their home. At no time in the history of the school, it is
important to state, do the church authorities appear to have
been in control of its affairs. At most, one or two of the
monks seem to have taken part in the teaching for limited
periods of time; but in its main characteristics the school
may truthfully be described as an institution created and
managed by physicians for the advancement of medical
science and the best interests of the profession as a whole.[1]
The organization of hospitals and their utilization for purposes of clinical instruction must have been the most important events which followed next in order. It is only
- ↑ According to tradition the medical school at Salerno was founded by four physicians—Adela, an Arab; Helinus, a Jew; Pontus, a Greek; and Salernus, a Latin.
