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INTRODUCTION. 
I. HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL OF SALERNO. 
Tue city of Salerno, the earliest school in Christian 
Europe where medicine was professed, taught, and 
practised, enjoyed every advantage which could be 
derived from a delicious climate, a spacious harbour, 
a river, and a fertile and variegated country. Yet 
Egidius Corboliensis, a writer of the twelfth century, 
informs us, that even at that time the air was bad, 
and afforded exercise to the skill of the physicians. 
Originally a Roman colony, it experienced the va- 
rious fortunes of the western empire. Upon the 
extinction of the dominion of the Goths, it be- 
came subject to the eastern empire, was soon after 
conquered by the Lombards, and, in their political 
arrangements, it formed part of the dutchy of Bene- 
vento. When Charlemagne destroyed the Lombard 
kingdom of Italy, the dukes of Benevento, who had 
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