at this time, branches of monasteries under supervision of
the monks, and did not compare favorably with the Arabian hospitals.

But while the medical science of the Mohammedans greatly overshadowed
that of the Christians during this period, it did not completely
obliterate it. About the year 1000 A.D. came into prominence the
Christian medical school at Salerno, situated on the Italian coast, some
thirty miles southeast of Naples. Just how long this school had been
in existence, or by whom it was founded, cannot be determined, but its
period of greatest influence was the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth
centuries. The members of this school gradually adopted Arabic medicine,
making use of many drugs from the Arabic pharmacopoeia, and this formed
one of the stepping-stones to the introduction of Arabian medicine all
through western Europe.

It was not the adoption of Arabian medicines, however, that has made the
school at Salerno famous both in rhyme and prose, but rather the fact
that women there practised the healing art. Greatest among them was
Trotula, who lived in the eleventh century, and whose learning is
reputed to have equalled that of the greatest physicians of the day. She
is accredited with a work on Diseases of Women, still extant, and many
of her writings on general medical subjects were quoted through two
succeeding centuries. If we may judge from these writings, she seemed
to have had many excellent ideas as to the proper methods of treating
diseases, but it is difficult to determine just which of the writings
credited to her are in reality hers. Indeed, the uncertainty is even
greater than this implies, for, according to some writers, "Trotula"
is merely the title of a book. Such an authority as Malgaigne, however,
believed that such a woman existed, and that the works accredited to
her are authentic. The truth of the matter may perhaps never be fully
established, but this at least is certain--the tradition in regard
to Trotula could never have arisen had not women held a far different
position among the Arabians of this period from that accorded them in
contemporary Christendom.

III. MEDIAEVAL SCIENCE IN THE WEST

We have previously referred to the influence of the Byzantine
civilization in transmitting the learning of antiquity across the abysm
of the dark age. It must be admitted, however, that the importance of
that civilization did not extend much beyond the task of the common
carrier.