0"T' LAERT> "! - USP

192 THE MIDDLE AGES.
GLAUCON, and the work of an anonymous writer, which,
as the examination of it shows, is compiled from various
authors. Furthermore study the medicine of AURELIUS
C/ELIUS, the book of HIPPOKRATES upon herbs and methods '.
of cure, and various other writings on the healing art, J
Y which I have installed in my library and have bequeathed j
to you." Certain members of the Benedictine order came
into profitable notoriety as doctors, like the Abbot BER-
THARIUS at Monte-Casino in the 9th century* Perhaps
even at an earlier period pious pilgrims and patients were
admitted and cared for at that place ; ST. BENEDICT the J
founder of the order having observed this custom in the East
and having accordingly imposed it as a duty on his followers. J
But the more certain information on this point namely that
institutions of this kind existed in Monte-Casino, dates
from the nth and 12th centuries and not before.f
The custom of bringing helpless sufferers into the "
Churches and Monasteries,.for the priests to sprinkle them
with holy water and to offer up prayers for their recovery
found universal acceptance in the first centuries of the
Middle Ages. From this the rule gradually came into I
existence of erecting institutions there in which the infirm .%
and ailing found shelter. The priests and monks who
superintended these, in addition to psychical means of cure,
employed also healing herbs and other remedies the
favourable action of which they had learnt to recognize J
from medical literature or from private experience. In this
way medical knowledge came to form an essential part of
the education of the priest, of which he felt the need in
the practice of his profession.
The schools of the Middle Ages, regarding as they did
the training of the cleric as their most important task, j
endeavoured to satisfy this want when they accepted 1
*" '"1
* DE RENZI : Storia docum. della scuola - medica di Salerno, 2 Ed., Napoli 1
1857, p. 64 et seq.
t TOSTI : Storia della badia di Monte Casino, Napoli 1842, i, 229, 341 et seq.
ii, p. 193, 209, 289.—Reg. S. Bened. 36 in MURATORI script, rer. Ital.