The Salernian writings, it appears, may readily be divided into two groups—those of the earlier and those of the later epoch of this famous school. The treatises which belong to the older epoch are written in the degraded Latin of the Middle Ages, and seem to have been composed entirely for didactic purposes. In the main they are compilations of still earlier Graeco-Latin works, but here and there, especially in the parts which relate to therapeutics, evidences of a certain measure of originality are discoverable. The pathology adopted shows a hodge-podge of the humoral doctrine and that of the Methodists.
The chief representative of this early epoch is Gariopontus (first half of the eleventh century), whose treatise on special pathology and therapeutics—entitled "Passionarius"—was very popular for a long period of years. Next in order comes Petroncellus, whose "Practica" calls for no special comment. Of the works of Alphanus, John Platearius (the elder) and Cophon (the elder), we possess only fragments. Trotula, who lived about 1059 A. D. and was believed to be the wife of John Platearius I., attained greater celebrity than any of those just mentioned. She was related to Roger I., Count of Sicily, and was therefore probably of Norman extraction, and she was considered by her contemporaries to be very learned ("sapiens matrona").[1] Her writings, which are quite numerous, are frequently quoted by later authors, this being especially true of her work on diseases of women. The four other women who took an active and creditable part in the work of the Salerno Medical School also wrote treatises on various subjects: Abella, on "Black Bile", (written in verse); Mercuriade, on "Pestilential Fever," and also on "The Treatment of Wounds"; and Rebecca Guarna, on "Fevers." In the case of Costanza Calenda, the daughter of the Dean of the medical school and a woman remarkable for her wisdom as well as for her great beauty, no record of the treatises which she wrote appears to have been preserved.
The later epoch of the literature created by the Medical School of Salerno begins about the year 1100 of the present
- ↑ Perhaps the French title "sage-femme" originated from this.
