To translate this into easily comprehensible English prose would certainly require the employment of at least five times as many words.
Another physician who received a part of his training at Salerno and who is mentioned by Neuburger as "The greatest eye surgeon of the Middle Ages," is Benevenutus Grapheus (twelfth century), a native of Jerusalem, and probably of Jewish parentage. He wrote a practical treatise ("Practica oculorum") which had a wide circulation, and which has been translated into Provençal, French and English.
Toward the end of the thirteenth century the famous Medical School of Salerno began to show signs of decadence. Various circumstances were responsible for this change. In the first place, its career of great usefulness had already covered a period of about seven hundred years, and—according to the law affecting all things human—its time of decrepitude was already more than due. Then, in the next place, vigorous rivals were beginning to appear in different parts of Europe,—at Bologna, at Montpellier and at Paris,—and these new schools must have attracted large numbers of students who otherwise would have frequented the University of Salerno for the educational facilities which they required. Commercialism—if such a term may be employed to characterize the action of those who were not willing to undergo the entire course of training required for obtaining the full privileges belonging to a physician—may perhaps also be named as one of the influences which contributed to the slow breaking up of the school. That this force had already begun to exert some effect upon the management of the institution may be inferred from the fact that in 1140 A. D., Roger, King of Sicily and Naples, promulgated the law that nobody would be permitted to practice medicine in his kingdom until he should have satisfied the royal authorities that he was properly qualified to undertake such practice. The establishment of such a law surely indicated that the number of those who were incompetent to assume the responsibilities of a practitioner of medicine was alarm-
