Overview

Medical education did not always take place in universities. Until the tenth century, medicine was practiced by individuals and taught to apprentices, or passed down from father to son. Those who practiced medicine were more like tradespeople but they had a higher status than "lowly" midwives, herbalists, stone-cutters, bone-setters, cataract-couchers, or tooth-pullers. The latter traveled from town to town to ply their specialty because there were no cities large enough to support them. Itinerant healers had varying degrees of knowledge, experience, and education but some were charlatans and magicians who preyed on a patient's gullibility.

Barber-surgeons, apothecaries, and surgeons were organized into guilds that had rules for membership, training, practice, and fees. These individuals had more status than herbalists but less than physicians. In fact surgeons were suspect individuals, granted little respect.

Background

The school of Salerno, Italy was...