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THE SCHOOL OF SALERNO. 205
of pneumonia, phthisis, psoriasis, lupus (malum mortuum)
ulcers on the sexual organs (among which it is easy to
recognize the chancre) especially deserve mention.
The Salernian doctors were well acquainted with the evil
significance of many symptoms in regard to prognosis;
thus they declared that where diarrhoea supervened in
phthisical cases the patients soon died. In treatment they
laid great value upon a reasonably regulated manner of
living and a suitable diet. If, for example, a commencing
pulmonary phthisis was suspected, they ordered good and
strengthening nourishment for the patient. People subject
to pneumonia were directed to live in an atmosphere of
even temperature; in winter, for example, in a heated
room.*
For cooling the air of the sick room AFFLACIUS recom­
mended that an arrangement should be made so that drops
of water should continually fall to the ground and there
evaporate.f Iron was ordered for enlargement of the
spleen.
Surgery had a position inferior to that occupied by it in
the time of the Greeks and Romans. This was due partly
to the neglect of anatomy, partly to the fact that surgery
was practised less by educated doctors than by empirics,
especially since many members of the medical profession
belonged to the priesthood.
In earlier times surgical knowledge was chiefly confined
to the treatment of wounds, the cure of fractured bones,
and the reduction of dislocations.
It was not till the end of the 12th century that a doctor
undertook to represent in writing the principles of surgery
as they had been preserved by tradition. This work, the
author of which was RUGGIERO, but which is generally
named after ROLANDO, a later editor, shows that the
surgeons of the Salernian school sought for instruction not
* DE RENZI : Collect. Salern ii, 215 et seq.
f DE RENZI : Collect. Salernit. ii, 741 (fiat etiam urtificialiter pluvialis aqua
circa cegrum).