ecome
cultured. In spite of this heritage from the Greeks, decadence took
place among the Arabs, and, as the centuries go on, what they do becomes
more and more trivial, and their writing has less significance. Just the
opposite happened in Europe. There, there was noteworthy progressive
development until the magnificent climax of thirteenth century
accomplishment was reached. It is often said that Europe owed much to
the Arabs for this, but careful analysis of the factors in that progress
shows that very little came from the Arabs that was good, while not a
little that was unfortunate in its influence was borrowed from them with
the translations of the Greek authors from that language, which
constituted the main, indeed often the only, reason why Arabian writers
were consulted.

With the foundation of the medical school of Salerno in the tenth
century, the modern history of medical education may be said to begin,
for it had many of the features that distinguish our modern university
medical schools. Its professors often came from a distance and had
travelled extensively for purposes of study; they attracted patients of
high rank from nearly every part of Europe, and these were generous in
their patronage of the school. Students came from all over, from Africa
and Asia, as well as Europe, and when abuses of medical practice began
to creep in, a series of laws were made creating a standard of medical
education and regulating the practice of medicine, that are interesting
anticipations of modern movements of the same kind. Finally a law was
passed requiring three years of preliminary work in logic and philosophy
before medicine might be taken up, and then four years at medicine, with
a subsequent year of practice with a physician before a license to
practise for one's self was issued. In addition to this there was a
still more surprising feature in the handing over of the department of
women's diseases to women professors, and the consequent opening up of
licensure to practise medicine to a great many women in the southern
part of Italy. The surprise that all this should have taken place in the
south of Italy is lessened by recalling the fact that the lower end of
the Italian peninsula had been early colonized by Greeks, that its name
in later times was Magna Graecia, and that the stimulus of Greek
tradition has always been especially favorable to the development of
scientific medicine.

Salerno's influence on Bologna i