Medical School of Salerno -

You know, I just read a terrific book by James J. Walsh called Old Time Makers of Medicine and for anyone interested in ancient or medieval medicine, this is the book for you. For me, he devotes several chapters to the Medical School of Salerno, that famous place founded in the supposedly Dark Ages that incorporated water and aroma therapy, music, meditation, and herbal medicines. They also performed surgery, including brain surgery (which everyone knows was practiced by the Egyptians so how "new" was that?) but Walsh also goes into details not usually known. such as female physicians who organized, taught and administered the department of female diseases and illnesses, who performed whatever necessary surgery was required, and taught medicine as well. I have actually been on the site of the medical school in Salerno. I'll never forget it. It was 1992 and I had an English guide who had lived in the area for 12 years. Christina and I tramped through private walkways, gardens and backyards to a place where, alas, some urban development had definitely erased its history, but there were a few 11th century walls and although I am not prone to such things - an AURA or feeling of some kind. Not unpleasant, but emotional. I only remember one other site where I "felt" such a thing - at Montsegur in Cathar Country, standing over the Field of the Burned Ones. If you're interested, read a fascinating and great historical novel - Mistress of the Art of Death by the now (alas) deceased Ariana Franklin. The heroine is a graduate of the famous Medical School of Salerno and she is what we would now call a forensic pathologist. Read it!!!