The most interesting feature of the medical school at Salerno is
undoubtedly the development of legal standards of medical education in
connection with the school. Before the middle of the twelfth century
Roger, King of the Two Sicilies, issued a decree according to which
preliminary studies at the University were required as a preparation for
the medical school, and four years of medical studies were made the
minimum requirement for the degree of doctor in medicine, which was,
however, as we have said, not a licence to practise, but only a
certificate authorizing teaching. There seemed to have been, even thus
early, some further state regulations with regard to practice. About the
middle of the next century, however, there came, through a law of the
Emperor Frederick II., a still further evolution of legal standards for
medical education and medical practice in the Two Sicilies. This law
required that the student of medicine should have spent some years,
probably the equivalent of our undergraduate training, in the university
before studying medicine, and that he should then devote four years to
medicine, after which, on proper examination, he might be given the degree
of doctor--that is, teacher of medicine; but he must spend a further year
of practice with a physician before he would be allowed to practise for
himself.
This is such a high standard that, only that we have the actual wording of
the law, it would seem almost impossible that it could have been evolved
at this period in medical history. It actually represents the standard
that we have climbed back to generally only during the past generation or
two, and in the interval there have been many rather serious derogations
from it. This law of the Emperor Frederick is, moreover, a pure drug law,
regulating the sale of drugs and their purity, and inflicting condign
punishment for substitution; in this regard also anticipating our most
recent well-considered legislation. The penalty by which the druggist was
fined all his movable goods for substitution, while the government
inspector who permitted such substitution was put to death, would seem to
us in the modern time to make the punishment eminently fit the crime.
Almost needless to say, then, the law (see Appendix for full text)
represents one of the most important documents in the history of medicine,
particularly of medical education. The fee regulation included in it shows
that medicine was looked upon as a profession, and was paid accordingly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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