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The fall of the Western Roman Empire and the invasion of Europe by the barbarians caused a long period of obscurantism, during which culture was kept in the monasteries, where monks preserved the ancient Greco-Roman and Arabic texts, which were compiled and commented.
It is about harmonizing Greek knowledge with Christian Theology, the same thing that the Arabs and Jews had attempted with their respective creeds. That is, Scholasticism is created.
Benedict of Nursia (480-547) was a Christian monk, considered the initiator of monastic life in the West and venerated as a saint by the Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran churches.
He founded the order of Benedictines whose purpose was to establish monasteries that were supplied by their own resources. They were organized around the church and the cloister. He transforms pagan temples into Christian churches with this famous phrase: “The ancient temples have been consecrated to the living God.”
Montecasino was the first monastery founded. The true saviors of ancient culture were the Benedictines. Benedict wrote a rule for his monks, later known as the “Holy Rule.”
He ordered each abbot to dedicate a part of the convents to the treatment of the sick and to cultivate in the monastery gardens the medicinal plants necessary to care for the sick.
The seed of the Salernitana Medical School was the hospital founded by the Benedictines in the 7th century, Montecasino, which gradually became a teaching center.
The Salernitana Medical School was the first medieval medical school and was located in the Italian city of Salerno, being the largest source of medical knowledge in Europe in its time.
Texts of Arabic medical treatments in Greek translations had accumulated in the library of Monte Cassino, where they were translated into Latin; The tradition of Hippocrates, Galen and Dioscorides, which they had received, was enriched by Arab and Jewish medical practice, known through contacts in Sicily and North Africa.
As a result, Salerno’s medical practitioners, both men and women, were unrivaled in the Western Mediterranean for their knowledge.
The meeting of different cultures allowed medical teaching that was born from the synthesis and comparison of different experiences, as evidenced in the legend that attributes the founding of the school to four teachers: the Jew Helinus, the Greek Pontus, the Arab Adela and the Latin Salernus.
The Salernitana School was founded in the 9th century, reaching its maximum splendor between the 10th and 13th centuries, from the last decades of power of Minor Lombardy until the fall of the Hohenstaufen (Ghibellines).
Constantine the African facilitated the Benedictines of Monte-Casino and Salerno to come into contact with Arab and Byzantine medicine, creating their own critical science. Some authors consider it the first European university.
The foundations of the school were based on the synthesis of the Greco-Latin tradition complemented by notions from Arab and Jewish culture. It represents a fundamental moment in the history of medicine due to the innovation that was introduced in the method and its commitment to prophylaxis.
The approach was based above all on practice and experience, thus opening the way to the empirical method and the culture of prevention. They contributed Christian charity to science.
Of particular importance, from a social point of view, is the role played by women in the practice and teaching of medicine, since they were accepted as professors and students in clear contrast to later universities, where the female presence was prohibited. until the end of the 19th century.
The doctors of the Salerno School did not introduce new things to their therapeutic background and limited themselves to repeating what the ancients had left written in didactic poems in Latin verses, which were very successful at that time and also in our days.
The curriculum studiorum consisted of:
It should be noted that at the School, apart from medical teachings, there were also courses in philosophy, theology and law, which is why it was considered the first university to be founded in Europe.
The drugs used by the Salerno School are listed in a kind of dictionary called Alphila, which cites food substances, chemicals, animal organs and the most common expressions of medical practice.
Among the works of the Salerno School we will mention the Antidotarius magnus seb universalis from the 11th century, by an unknown author. In this book were all the formulas used at the time, 115 of which were introduced in the 13th century in the Antidotarius magnus of Master Nicolaus, which was a basic document of medieval practical pharmacy that allowed the recipes to be prepared with precision. It was adapted to the spirit and needs of the time.
The most famous work of the Salerno School is the Regimen Sanitaris salernitanum, which summarizes all the knowledge of the school.
The last edition contained 3,520 verses.
“If you don’t have a doctor
be the doctor yourself
with a happy spirit, rest
and moderate food.”
“If you want to be healthy
wash your hands often.”
In the health regime, 285 verses are dedicated to plants.
Beautiful codexes have been preserved with wonderful miniatures of medicinal plants.
Among the famous physicians of the School of Salerno we can cite Garioponto, Pietro Clerico, Alphano I, Constantine the African, Trotula of Salerno, Ruggero Frugardi, Giovanni Afflacio, Saladin d’Ascoli, Matthaeus Platearius, Abella of Salerno, Francesca di Roma, Gimovandi da Procida, Mercuriade, Constanza Calenda, Matteo Sivatico and Rebecca de Guarna.
