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212
THE MIDDLE AGES.
instil new life into it by privileges and endowments were
in vain. A decree of the French Government, which for
some time guided the destinies of the country, on the 29th
of November, 1811, put an end to the oldest medical
school in Europe.
THE MEDICAL SCHOOL OF MONTPELLIER.
THE origin of the medical school of Montpellier is also
veiled in the obscurity of tradition. It is unknown at what |
period the doctors there began to instruct students in the
science of medicine. Among the doctors who practised
medicine in the 10th and nth centuries at Montpellier
there were probably many Jews and Arabs ; the fact that a ^
large proportion of the population of this town consisted ,:
of members of these nations, and the vicinity of Spain, J
where Jewish doctors existed in great numbers and in
high respect under the dominion of the Arabs, justify this
assumption.
The Jews had a large. share in the triumphs which
Arabian medicine celebrated in Spain. The names of
MOSES MAIMONIDES, CHASDAI SCHAPROUT, JUDAH
HALEVI, NACHMANIDES and others speak as to their
work in the different paths of intellectual life. The
Rabbis and learned men among the Jews interested them- •}
selves in medicine, and the medical schools of the Jews at
Toledo, Granada, and Cordova stood in high esteem'. The •
Arabian princes of the Iberian peninsula as well as their
Christian successors chose Jews, by preference, for their
private doctors* But the Jewish doctors earned the
greatest merit. in acting as mediators between ArabianJ
medical science and Western Christendom. Partly by
translations of Arabic works which they prepared, partly
by word of mouth, they made the inhabitants of the adjoining
Christian countries acquainted with the scientific
acquisitions of that nearly related Semitic race.
* J. M U N Z : Uber die jildischen Aizte im Mittelalter, Berlin 1877, S. 17
tt seq.