The earlier teachings and practice of Salernum were a curious mixture of methodism, dogmatism, and superstition. The latter may be better understood when it is recalled that the practice of medicine for an extended period was confined almost exclusively to ecclesiastics, who by their very education were prone to superstition and upheld the efficacy of charms and relics, and the active intervention of saints and martyrs as well as the myrmidons of evil; hence arose many of the conflicts and absurd notions peculiar to the period. The prevalence of the doctrine of medical methodism was due to the character of the writings most accessible to students of that day,--such as those of Ccelius Aurelianus and others; and it is curious that Celsus, the most elegant of medical authors, was never popular among medical monks. The Hellenic language having almost disappeared from Italy by the sixth century, the works of the Greek authors had become a sealed book to a vast majority, even of the better educated; hence the purer sources of medical knowledge were not available. Although the school of Salernum, at a later date, prided{083} itself upon its devotion to the "Father of Medicine," the Hippocratic writings were not known at this period; and, when Constantine the African, by the translation of Arabian works, introduced a new element into the Salernian school, he ingrafted upon its medical teaching a form of doctrine which found a congenial atmosphere, in which it throve vigorously, while, a century later, the translations of Gerard of Cremona gave a stronger impulse to the growth of Hippocratic medicine than to Hippocratic doctrine.