early as the middle of the ninth century,
and from this date until the rise of the universities it was not only a
great medical school, but a popular resort for the sick and wounded. As
the scholar says in Longfellow's "Golden Legend":

Then at every season of the year
There are crowds of guests and travellers here;
Pilgrims and mendicant friars and traders
From the Levant, with figs and wine,
And bands of wounded and sick Crusaders,
Coming back from Palestine.

There were medical and surgical clinics, foundling hospitals, Sisters
of Charity, men and women professors--among the latter the famous
Trotula--and apothecaries. Dissections were carried out, chiefly upon
animals, and human subjects were occasionally used. In the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, the school reached its height, and that remarkable
genius, Frederick II, laid down regulations for a preliminary study
extending over three years, and a course in medicine for five years,
including surgery. Fee tables and strict regulations as to practice were
made; and it is specifically stated that the masters were to teach
in the schools, theoretically and practically, under the authority of
Hippocrates and Galen. The literature from the school had a far-reaching
influence. One book on the anatomy of the pig illustrates the popular
subject for dissection at that time.(6) The writings, which are
numerous, have been collected by De Renzi.(7)

(6) "And dissections of the bodies of swine
As likest the human form divine."--Golden Legend.

(7) S. de Renzi: Collectio Salernitana, 5 vols., Naples,
1852-1859; P. Giacosa: Magistri Salernitani, Turin, 1901.

The "Antidotarium" of Nicolaus Salernitanus, about 1100, became the
popular pharmacopoeia of the Middle Ages, and many modern preparations
may be traced to it.

The most prominent man of the school is Constantinus Africanus, a native
of Carthage, who, after numerous journeys, reached Salernum about the
middle of the eleventh century. He was familiar with the works both of
the Greeks and of the Arabs, and it was largely through his translations
that the works of Rhazes and Avicenna became known in the West.

One work above all others spread the fame of the school--the Regimen
Sanitatis, or Flos Medicinae as it is sometimes called, a poem on
popular medicine. It is dedicated to Robert of Normandy, who had been
treated at Salernum, and the lines begin: "Anglorum regi s