178 REGIMEN SA.MTATIS SAI.ERiVITANrM. 



by their proximity to the Arabians, were enabled to become possesse(! 

 of their learning also. The precise date of origin of its medical school 

 cannot be fixed. Ordericus Vitalis speaks of it in 1059 as existing " ab 

 antiquo tempore. " Giannone asserts that it existed in the time of Pope 

 John VIH. (872 to 882.) Neither are its founders better known. Maz- 

 za, on the faith of an ancient chronicle, asserts that they were Rabbi 

 Elinus, a Jew, Pontus, a Greek, Adala, a Saracen, and Salernus, a Latin. 

 Others declare that the medical reputation of Salerno was originally due 

 to the cures performed there by the bones of St. Archelais. The more 

 probable story is that the founders of the school were the monks of the 

 monastery of Monte Casino, founded by St. Benedict in 528. tt was 

 about this period that Cassiodorus recommended to all monks : Legite 

 Hippocratem et Galenum. We know that the practice of physic, and 

 also of the law, \vas in the hands of chiirchmen until the decree of the 

 Council of Lateran forbade it in 1139, and, even after this, they contin- 

 ued to practice, notwithstanding the decree of the Council of Tours in 

 1163 and that of Honorius III in 1216. The Jesuits always have con- 

 tinued to dabble in medicine, and have owed much of their missionary 

 success to this fact. The title of Pulvis Patrum was given to the Pe- 

 ruvian Bark from its use by the Jesuits before it was received into favor 

 by the profession. The monks of Monte Casino appear to have prac- 

 ticed medicine according to the rude empirical rules of their day, the 

 principal agent in use being the lancet, employed both as cure and pre- 

 ventive. One of the most curious passages in the ancient Chronicle of 

 Jocelyn of Brakelond, recently published by the Camden Society, is the 

 mention of the gossips of the monks at their sociable session in the re- 

 fectory, '■'■tempore minutionis'''' — at the time of general blood-letting. — 

 The first abbot of Monte Casino mentioned as encouraging medicine is 

 Bertharius, who was murdered by the Saracens. Alfanus the Second, 

 who became abbot in 1057, wrote upon medicine, and the abbot Desi- 

 derius, who afterwards was Pope Victor III, is mentioned as a skilful 

 physician. 



The fame of the school did not become extended until it had gained 

 itie services of Constantinus Africanus in 1075. He was a native of 

 Carthage, studied thirty-nine years at Bagdad, travelling occasionally, 

 and took refuge from the persecutions of his rivals at Salerno, where he 

 was converted to Ciiristianity. He appears first to have made the monks 

 acquainted with all the treasures of Arabian learning. His disciples 

 spread over all Italy, and with them the fame of the school. The pu- 

 pils became numerous and soon included their ecclesiastics. There is 

 reason to believe that about this period, tlie practice of medicine began 



