l school at Bologna than that of Salerno, though there is no
doubt that at least Roger and Rolando received their education at
Salerno and embodied in their writings the surgical traditions of that
school. While I have preferred, in order to have a connected story of
surgical development, to treat of their contributions to their specialty
under the head of the "Great Surgeons of the Medieval Universities," it
seems well to point out here that they must be considered as
representing especially the surgical teaching of the older medical
school of Salerno. There are many interesting features of the old
teaching that they have embodied in their books. For instance, at
Salerno both sutures and ligatures were employed in order to prevent
bleeding. We are rather accustomed to think of such uses of thread, and
especially the ligature, as being much later inventions. The fact of the
matter is, however, that ligatures and sutures were reinvented over and
over again and then allowed to go out of use until someone who had no
idea of their dangers came to reinvent them once more.[8]

Much is often said about the place of Arabian surgery and medicine at
this time, and the influence that they had over the medical teaching and
thinking of the period. To trust many of the shorter histories of
medicine the Arabs must be given credit for more of the medical thought
of this time than any other medical writers or thinkers. It is
forgotten, however, apparently, that in the southern part of Italy,
where Salerno was situated, Greek influence never died out. This had
been a Greek colony in the olden time and continued to be known for many
centuries after the Christian era as Magna Graecia. Greek medicine, then,
had more influence here than anywhere else. As a matter of fact, the
beginnings of Salernitan teaching are all Greek and not at all Arabian.
This is as true in surgery as in medicine. I have quoted Gurlt in the
chapter on "Great Surgeons of the Medieval Universities," insisting that
the Salernitan school owed nothing at all to Arabian surgery. Salernitan
medicine was, during the twelfth century, just as free from Arabian
influence. When Arabian medicine makes itself felt, as pointed out by
Pagel in his "Geschichte der Heilkunde im Mittelalter,"[9] far from
exerting a beneficial influence, it had a rather unfortunate effect. It
led especially to an oversophistication of medicine from the standpoint
of drug therapeutics. The Arabian physici