One work above all others spread the fame of the school—the
Regimen Sanitatis, or Flos Medicinae as it is sometimes
called, a poem on popular medicine. It is dedicated
to Robert of Normandy, who had been treated at Salernum,
and the lines begin: “Anglorum regi scripsit
schola tota Salerni . . . " It is a hand-book of diet
and household medicine, with many shrewd and taking
sayings which have passed into popular use, such as
“Joy, temperance and repose Slam the door on
the doctor’s nose.” A full account
of the work and the various editions of it is given
by Sir Alexander Croke,(8) and the Finlayson lecture
(Glasgow Medical Journal, 1908) by Dr. Norman Moore
gives an account of its introduction into the British
Isles.
(8) Regimen Sanitutis
Salernitanum; a Poem on the Preservation of
Health in Rhyming Latin
Verse, Oxford, D.A. Talboys, 1830.
The second great stream which carried Greek medicine
to modern days runs through the Eastern Empire.
Between the third century and the fall of Constantinople
there was a continuous series of Byzantine physicians
whose inspiration was largely derived from the old
Greek sources. The most distinguished of these
was Oribasius, a voluminous compiler, a native of
Pergamon and so close a follower of his great townsman
that he has been called “Galen’s ape.”
He left many works, an edition of which was edited
by Bussemaker and Daremberg. Many facts relating
to the older writers are recorded in his writings.
He was a contemporary, friend as well as the physician,
of the Emperor Julian, for whom he prepared an encyclopaedia
of the medical sciences.
Other important Byzantine writers were Aetius and
Alexander of Tralles, both of whom were strongly under
the influence of Galen and Hippocrates. Their
materia medica was based largely upon Dioscorides.
From Byzantium we have the earliest known complete
medical manuscript, dating from the fifth century—a
work of Dioscorides—one of the most beautiful
in existence. It was prepared for Anicia Juliana,
daughter of the Emperor of the East, and is now one
of the great treasures of the Imperial Library at
Vienna.(9) From those early centuries till the fall
of Constantinople there is very little of interest
medically. A few names stand out prominently,
but it is mainly a blank period in our records.
Perhaps one man may be mentioned, as he had a great
influence on later ages—Actuarius, who
lived about 1300, and whose book on the urine laid
the foundation of much of the popular uroscopy and
water-casting that had such a vogue in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. His work on the subject
passed through a dozen Latin editions, but is best
studied in Ideler’s “Physici et medici
Graeci minores” (Berlin, 1841).
(9) It has been reproduced
by Seatone de Vries, Leyden, 1905,
Codices graeci et latini
photographice depicti, Vol. X.
