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278 THE MIDDLE AGES.
dukes of Savoy, who, as is well known, cannot be classed
amongst rich princes, gave their physicians in ordinary a
yearly stipend of from 40 to 60 gulden; at the court of
Naples they received, on the other hand, from 100 to 300
ducats. In Prague the usufruct of several estates was
assigned to the royal physicians in ordinary.
The institution of the Archiatri populares, the paid
medical officers of towns, was probably kept up in many
towns of Italy without interruption from ancient times
through the entire period of the middle ages. The Ostrogoths
and Lombards received it from the Romans and most
likely handed it on unchanged to their successors in the
dominion of Italy. In Rome, as also in Denmark and
Sweden, the name of archiater was used as a title for a high
medical official even up to the most recent times.
The duties of the town medical officers were these: to
attend gratis the officials of the town and the poor of the
town, to provide medical service for the town hospitals, to
assist the magistrates as experts, and to accompany the
citizens into the field in time of war; they also exercised
control over the apothecaries' shops and licensed houses,
and conducted the public sanitary service. At a later
period in many places they also undertook the teaching of
the lower class of attendants on the sick and examined
them. In Venice there .were 12 physicians and 12
surgeons appointed by the town; the former receiving
from 15 to 100 ducats annual pay and the latter from 10 to
130. Even smaller places devoted a regular sum to this
purpose in their budget of expenditure. Treviso paid its
three public medical officers 728 lire a year, Conegliano -J
350 lire to physicians, 250 to surgeons, and Palermo granted
to its two town doctors 50 ounces of gold a year.* In J
Germany public medical officers were first appointed in the
14th century. In an order of the Emperor SlGlSMUND,
of the year 1426, it is said: "In every imperial town ;|
there is to be a cnief-doctor; he is to be paid 100 gulden. \
* CHIAPELLI op. cit. pp. 22, 31.