are contained in the law. To understand it
properly, however, one must know the law of King Roger of the preceding
century; and then it is easy to appreciate that Frederick's regulation
is only such a development of the governmental attitude toward medical
practice as might have been expected during the century since Roger's
time. It has sometimes been suggested that this law made by the Emperor
Frederick, who was so constantly in bitter opposition to the Papacy, was
issued in despite of the Church authorities and represents a policy very
different from any which they would have encouraged. The early history
of Salerno, even briefly as we have given it, completely contradicts any
such idea. The history of medical regulation at the beginning of the
next century down at Montpellier moreover, where the civil authorities
being weak the legal ordering of the practice of medicine was
effectively taken up by the Church, and the authority for the issuance
of licenses to practise was in the hands of the bishops of the
neighborhood, shows clearly that it is not because of any knowledge of
the real medical history of the times that such remarks are made, but
from a set purpose to discredit the Church.

The Emperor Frederick's law deserves profound respect and consideration
because of the place that it holds in the legal regulation of the
practice of medicine. Anyone who thinks that evolution must have brought
us in seven centuries much farther in this matter than were the people
of the later Middle Ages should read this law attentively. Everyone who
is interested in medical education should have a copy of it near him,
because it will have a chastening effect in demonstrating not only how
little we have done in the modern time rather than how much, but above
all how much of decadence there was during many periods of the interval.
The law may be found in the original in "The Popes and Science" (Fordham
University Press, N.Y., 1908). Three years of preliminary university
education before the study of medicine might be taken up, four years of
medical studies proper before a degree was given, a year of practice
with a regularly licensed physician before a license to practise could
be obtained, a special course in anatomy if surgery were to be
practised; all this represents an ideal we are striving after at the
present time in medical education. Besides this, Frederick's law also
regulates medical fees, requires gratuitous attendance on