20 PATHOLOGY. 
mod celebrated in the world. About the latter end of 
the nth century, Conftantine the African introduced 
into the Salernian fchooi the Grecian authors, as well as 
the learning which he had obtained from a long refidence 
in Babylon and Bagdad. In the twelfth century, how¬ 
ever, this fchooi arrived at its higheft fame; and was 
much frequented by the crufaders in their paftage to and 
from the Holy Land. Among thefe, Robert, the ion of 
William the Conqueror, had the honour of having the 
well-known “ Regimen Sanitatis Salerni” dedicated to 
him. In the year 1140, the emperor Frederic II. con¬ 
ferred particular privileges on the fchooi of Salerno, and 
regulated the courfe of ltudies, and the probations which 
phyficians and furgeons ihculd undergo before they were 
permitted to praftife. Many of the ordinances iliow great 
judgment. The Salernian fchooi continued accordingly 
to flouriih till the middle of the fourteenth century, when 
it appears to have begun to decline. “Fuiffe Salerni,” 
fays Petrarch, “medicinas fontem fama eft ; fed nihil eft, 
quod non fenio exarefcat.” Gariopontus, Nicolaus, 
AEgidiu-s, Enos, and John of Milan, the author of the 
Regimen Sanitatis, are the chief writers whom this fchooi 
boafts. This fchooi was perhaps, the firft that eftabliftied 
the form of public examination and admiftion, and pof- 
fefled the power of conferring medical licenfes and de¬ 
grees. It recognifes molt obvioufiy the exiftence of apo¬ 
thecaries, and enforces the propriety of difcriminating 
the three branches of the medical profeflion from each 
other. The phyfician was under the neceftity of pro¬ 
ducing teftimonials that he had been a medical ftudent 
for feven full years ; the furgeon that he had attended 
to anatomy for at leaft one ; and the apothecary was pro¬ 
hibited from charging more than an eftabliftied ratio for 
the medicaments he compounded or employed. 
While the eaftern nations aftiduoufty cultivated the 
knowledge of the Greek writers, and while their caliphs 
and rulers encouraged fcience by a liberal patronage, a 
very different part was followed by the Chriftians. The 
clergy, actuated by avaricious motives, feized upon the 
province of the phyfician ; and the moft ignorant priefts 
and rn.onks ventured upon the practice of medicine, with¬ 
out any proper ftudy or preparation. At length the evil 
became too crying to be any longer endured ; and the firft 
Lateral! council, held in 1123, forbade the regular clergy 
to vifit any longer the lick. The prohibition was re¬ 
peated, in other terms, by the council of Rheims in 1131, 
and by the fecond general Lateran council in 1139 ; and 
thofe monks and canons who applied themfelves to phy¬ 
fic,“ordinis fui propofitum nullatenus attendentes, pro de- 
teftunda peeuniafmitalem pollicentes ,” were threatened with 
fevere penalties ; and all bifhops, abbots, and priors, who 
connived at their mifconduft, were ordered to be fuf- 
pended from their ecclefiaftical funftions. “ But the 
French priefts and monks,” fays Cabanis, “bade defiance 
to thefe thundering anathemas ; and it was not till three 
hundred years after, that common fenfe, and a regard to 
propriety and the public good, triumphed finally over 
their artifices. A fpecial bull, procured by the cardinal 
d’Eftonteville, in 145a, which permitted phyficians to 
marry, effected their complete feparation from the clergy ; 
and, lthis means alone, put a flop to a variety of fliame- 
ful abufes. 
To the honour of our country, however, be it men¬ 
tioned, that thefe abufes do not appear to have prevailed 
to fuch an extent among us. The clergy did not indeed 
praftife phyfic, but they were armed with great autho¬ 
rity over thofe who did. In the days when benefit of clergy 
had a laving fignification in courts of law, the minifters 
of religion were regarded with great reverence; and their 
powers over the practice of medicine are not yet quite 
extinft. The firft control exercifed over the practice of 
phyfic in England appears to have been ecclefiaftical, 
though the end and purpofe of the interference of the 
church on this occafion, as in moft others in thofe times, 
.as not fo much the health of the body as the welfare 
of the foul, ecclefiaJUcaUy underflood. One of the confti- 
tutions of Richard Wetherfhed, archbilhop of Canterbury 
anno 1229, in the fourteenth year of the reign of Henry 
III. runs as follows: “Under pain of anathema, we for¬ 
bid any phyfician to give advice for the health of the 
body which may prove perilous to the foul, which is much 
more precious than the body. But, when it happens that 
he is called to a lick man, let him firft effeftually perfuade 
him to call for the phyfician of the foul ; that, when the 
fick man has taken fpiritual cure, he may, with better 
effeft, proceed to the bodily medicines. Let not the 
tranfgreftors of this conftitution efcape the punilhment 
appointed by the council.” The punilhment here de¬ 
nounced againft phyficians fo offending, was a prohibi¬ 
tion from entrance into the church till they had made 
fatisfaftion, according to chap. xxii. of the council of 
Lateran, under Pope Innocent III. from whence this 
conftitution is taken. 
It was nearly two centuries after this, namely, in the 
reign of Henry V. anno 9. that the firft ftatute was enafted 
relative to praftitioners in phyfic. The preamble to this 
aft, after reciting the mifchiefs arifing from illiterate 
praftifers, ftates, “ that if no man praftifed therein but 
all only conynge men, and approved, fufficiently ylearned 
in art, filofofye, and fifyk, as it is kept in other londes 
and roiaumes, therftiuld many man that dyeth for de- 
faute of help lyve, and no man perilh of unconnyng.” 
The petition then goes on to pray, that no perfon be 
allowed to praftice phyfic, “ but he have long time yufed 
the fcoles of fifyk within fome univerfitee, and be gra¬ 
duated in the fame.” 
The next aft reftraining the praftice of phyfic in 
London and its immediate vicinity, to perfons of approved 
competency, was palled in the third year of the reign of 
Henry VIII. feven years prior to the eftablilhment, by 
charter, of the prefent College of Phyficians. Its title 
was, “ An Aft for the appointing of Phyficians and Sur¬ 
geons.” It was enafted that no perfon within the city 
of London, nor within feven miles of the fame, take upon 
him to exercileand occupy as a phyfician or furgeon,except 
he be firft examined, approved, and admitted, by the bilhop 
of London, or by the dean of Paul’s, for the time being, 
calling to him or them four doftors of phyfic, and, for 
furgery, other expert perfons in that faculty. When the 
Charter of the College of Phyficians was granted by the 
king, it was on the petition of a prieft, the cardinal 
Wolfey, chancellor of England, in conjunftion with 
John Chambre, Thomas Linacre, Ferdinand de Victoria, 
foreign graduates, the king’s phyficians, and Nicholas 
Halfwell, John Francis, and Robert Yaxley, phyficians. 
And the archbilhop of Canterbury can, and does to this 
day, by his diploma, conftitutea phyfician. 
To return from this digrelfion.—After Salernum, the 
Univerfities of Montpellier, Paris, Boulogne, Pavia, 
Padua, and Ferrara, became the moft diftinguilhed femi- 
naries for medical education ; but the fervile attachment 
to ancient dogmas which obtained in their fchools ma¬ 
terially retarded their progrefs. In 1271, the College of 
Surgeons at Paris was eftabliftied by Pitard, a man who, 
according to Quefnay, was born for the advancement of 
his art; and furgery was henceforth cultivated with much 
fuccefs in France, as a diftinft branch of the profeflion. 
Several writers on phyfic appeared in England; among 
whom Gilbert has the merit of having furnilhed the belt 
defcription of the leprofy of the middle ages ; but he trod 
in the footfteps of the Arabians, and gave into the fcho- 
laftic ftyle. The fame remark applies to his fucceftors, 
John of St. Giles, Richard of Windermere, Nicolas 
of Farneham, John of Gaddefden, &c. It was in Italy 
that medical fcience was revived in the trueft fpirit. In 
the year 1315, Mondini de Luzzi, profeffor at Bologna, 
aftoniflied the whole world, to ufe vicq d’Azyr’s expref- 
fion, by the public difleftion of two human bodies. His 
example was followed in other univerfities ; but the 
utility of the praftice was in a great degree fruftrated by 
