This point once reached, a further advance soon became inevitable. Attention had been called to a deeper source of medical knowledge than that generally possessed in the West. Learned men, whose tastes led them this way, naturally sought to inform their minds by procuring translations of the Arabic works on medicine. The just fame of Salerno, a medical school which had been founded in the closing years of the eleventh century by Robert Guiscard, depended on the intelligent zeal with which this plan of research was then pursued.[219] The kingdom of Sicily indeed occupies as important a place in the progress of the healing art as Spain itself does with regard to the history of philosophy and of science in general. Frederick II., as might have been expected, did much to encourage and regulate these useful studies. We have already noticed the bent of his mind towards comparative physiology, and the daring experiments he carried out, _in corpore vili et vivo_. One of the first literary and scientific works which he commanded, or at least accepted when it was dedicated to him, was a compilation from three ancient authors upon a medical subject.[220] He was then but eighteen years of age. As time went on his interest in this science continued, and became the motive to a liberal and enlightened policy. He regarded medicine as a matter of national importance, and strove by wise laws to make the practice of that profession as intelligent and useful as possible. He protected the faculty at Salerno and created that of Naples. None might lecture elsewhere in the Sicilies, and every physician in the kingdom must hold testimonials from one or other of these schools, as well as a government licence to practise. The course preliminary to qualification consisted of three years in arts and five in medicine and surgery. As a guide to the professors, the doctrine of Hippocrates and Galen was declared normal in the schools; yet, lest this should become merely formal and traditional, directions were given that the students should have practice in anatomy. Regarding the related trade of the apothecary, the laws denounced the adulteration of drugs. Physicians might not claim a greater fee than half a _taren_ of gold per diem, which gave the patient a right to be visited thrice in the day. The poor were to be attended free of charge. We have thought it right to be particular in these details, as they throw light on the times, and on Scot’s own practice as a physician. Considering indeed the place he held about the Emperor’s person, and the high estimation in which his master held him, it seems not at all improbable that his may have been the hand which drew these wise enactments, or his at least the suggestion which commended them to Frederick. They must in any case have been the rules under which he carried on his work as a doctor of medicine.