438 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



the vegetable materia medica and also a greatly increased knowledge 

 of botany. The word "drug" also appeared about this time, meaning 

 a "dry herb." With this development of the herbal garden there also 

 appeared manuscripts dealing with drugs and their use in medicine, 

 but they mostly dealt with charms and spells and contributed little 

 to the knowledge of medicine. 



During the ninth to the eleventh centuries an opportunity was 

 offered at Cordova for the estabUshment of a scjiarate Jewish academy, 

 and its influence rapidly spread through Europe, where many Jewish 

 physicians were welcomed and successfully practiced their profession. 

 One of the best known Italian Jews of this period was called Donnolo, 

 and his "Autidotarium" contained descriptions and formulas for 

 many drugs and preparations. 



ELEVENTH TO FIFTEENTH CENTURIES 



About the middle of the eleventh century there began a reawakening 

 of interest in arts and sciences throughout all of Europe. The 

 Norman Duke Robert captured Salerno in 107G and encouraged the 

 development of the university so that it became the leading educa- 

 tional center of middle Europe. During the next 200 years other 

 universities were established — Paris, Bologna, Oxford, Cambridge, 

 Padua and Naples — and in all of them medicine and pharmacy 

 were taught. 



The medical director of the Medical School at Salerno at the begin- 

 ning of the twelfth century was Nicholas Praepositus. His "auti- 

 dotarium" became the standard for pharmaceutical formulas for 

 centuries, and he introduced the apothecaries' system of weights and 

 measures much as it is Imown today. 



A notable advance came in 1224 when Frederic II of Sicily estab- 

 lished a regulation requiring all physicians and compounders of medi- 

 cine to be examined and licensed by the Medical School of Salerno. 

 The pharmacists, or as they were then called, the "confectionarii," 

 were required to swear that they would prepare aU medicines according 

 to the instructions of the antidotary of Nicholas Praepositus. The 

 drug dispensers were under strict inspection, and some preparations 

 had to be made in the presence of inspectors. Any attempt to 

 defraud subjected the offender to confiscation of his property and an 

 inspector caught violating the law was subject to the death penalty. 



During the next period, from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, 

 many additional universities were established, but there was little 

 original medical Imowledge developed, although during this time 

 frightful scourges swept through Europe, these including leprosy, 

 ergotism, black death or plague, and later syphilis. It is estimated 

 that 25 percent of the human race died from plague during this period. 

 This era is noted, however, pharmaceutically, for the establishment 



