ans trusted nature very little.
In this they were like our forefathers of medicine one hundred years
ago, of whom Rush was the typical representative--so history repeats
itself.

Before the introduction of Arabian medicine the Salernitan school of
medicine was noted for its common-sense methods and its devotion to all
the natural modes of healing. It looked quite as much to the prevention
of disease as its treatment. Diet and air and water were always looked
upon as significant therapeutic aids. With the coming of Arabian
influence there began, says Pagel, "as the literature of the times shows
very well, that rule of the apothecary in therapeutics which was an
unfortunate exaggeration. Now all the above-mentioned complicated
prescriptions came to be the order of the day. Apparently the more
complicated a prescription the better. Dietetics especially was
relegated to the background. Salerno, at the end of the twelfth century,
had already reached its highest point of advance in medicine and was
beginning to decline. Decadence was evident in so far as all the medical
works that we have from that time are either borrowings or imitations
from Arabian medicine with which eventually Salernitan medical
literature became confounded. Only a few independent authors are found
after this time." This is so very different from what is ordinarily
presumed to have been the case and openly proclaimed by many historians
of medicine because apparently they would prefer to attribute
scientific advance to the Arabs than to the Christian scholars of the
time, that it is worth while noting it particularly.

Salerno was particularly rich in its medical literary products. Very
often we have not the names of the writers. Apparently there is good
reason to think that a number of the professors consulted together in
writing a book, and when it was issued it was considered to be a
text-book of the Salernitan school of medicine rather than of any
particular professor. This represents a development of co-operation on
the part of colleagues in medical teaching that we are likely to think
of as reserved for much later times.

The most important medical writing that comes to us from Salerno, in the
sense at least of the work that has had most effect on succeeding
generations, has been most frequently transcribed, most often translated
and committed to memory by many generations of physicians, is the
celebrated Salernitan medical poem on hygiene. The t