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MEDICAL EXAMINATIONS. 26l
MEDICAL EXAMINATIONS.
THE medical examinations, which students of medicine
had to pass, before being permitted to practise, had their
prototype in the arrangements made by the Emperor
FREDERICK II. at Salerno. In course of time however the
place of the single examination, occurring at the conclusion
of the studies, was taken by examinations for the degree
of Bachelor, for the license, and for the degree of Magister
or of Doctor. These academical degrees were apparently
first introduced at Bologna and Paris. In Salerno and
Naples they were instituted by CHARLES of Anjou in 1278
and 1280, as appears from the documents cited by S. DE
RENZI* All candidates for the degree of bachelor of
medicine, were obliged to have attended medical lectures
for two or three years and then to give proofs in an oral
examination held before members of the medical faculty
That they had acquired a general theoretical knowledge
of the several branches of medical science. By a
solemn act, the ''determination," in which the candidate
discussed a scientific question which had been propounded
to him, he was transferred from the class of the scholars
into that of the " baccalarii " as they were called in the
corrupt Latin of the middle ages. The word is by some
commentators, associated with baculum, a stick, which is
said to have been handed to the bachelors presumably as a
token of their new dignity, f It may with greater prob­
ability be derived from bacca lauri: it recalls the crowning of
poets with the laurel-wreath, of which mention is made in the
history of the middle ages. After an interval of two or
three years, which the candidate made use of to acquire
more extensive education in his department of learning and
especially practical training, the examinations which pre­
ceded the conferring of the license followed the bachelor's
* S. DE RENZI : Storia docum. della scuola med. di Salerno, Doc. No 28*7
291. ' "
t DE RENZI :%>ria docum. della scuola med. di Salerno, p. 556.