ntpelier, Paris, Padua and Pisa.
Excellent schools, however, were established also at Oxford, Rome,
Salamanca, Orleans and Coimbra. Even early in the fourteenth century
such unimportant towns as Perugia, Cahors and Lerida had medical
schools. These schools were usually established in connection with the
universities. It was realized that this would make the teaching of
medicine more serious and keep the practical side of medicine from
obscuring too much the scientific and cultural aspects of the medical
training. In modern times in America we made the mistake of having our
medical schools independent of universities, but with the advance in
education and culture we have come to imitate the custom of the
thirteenth and the fourteenth century in this regard.

The universities, as is well known, were the outgrowth of cathedral
schools. Practically all those in authority {4} in them, by far the
greater number of teachers and most of the pupils, were of the
clerical order, that is, had assumed some ecclesiastical obligations
and were considered to be churchmen. At these universities, if we can
trust the example of England as applicable to the Continent also,
there were, according to trustworthy, conservative statistics, more
students in attendance in proportion to the population than there has
been at any period since, or than there are even at the present time
in the twentieth century in any country of the civilized world. From
this we can readily appreciate the enthusiastic ardor of those seeking
education. Of these large numbers, the medical schools had their due
proportion. [Footnote 1]

[Footnote 1: This subject of the attendance at the universities of the
Middle Ages is discussed, and authorities quoted, in my book "The
Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries," published by the Catholic Summer
School Press, N. Y.]

Of course it will be said at once that though there were medical
schools and medical professors and students, what was taught and
studied at this time was so far distant from anything like practical
knowledge of medicine, that it does not tell against the argument that
medical education was practically non-existent. Some people will
perhaps harbor the thought, if they do not frankly express it, that
very probably these schools were organized under ecclesiastical
authority, only in order to enable the Church and the clergy to
maintain their control of medical education and keep the people from
knowledge that mi