When their surgery came to be written down, however, it gave abundant evidence of the thoroughness with which this department of medicine had been cultivated by the Salernitan faculty. We have the text-book of Roger, with the commentary of Rolando, and then the so-called commentary of the Four Masters. These writings were probably made rather for the medical school at Bologna than that of Salerno, though there is no doubt that at least Roger and Rolando received their education at Salerno and embodied in their writings the surgical traditions of that school. While I have preferred, in order to have a connected story of surgical development, to treat of their contributions to their specialty under the head of the "Great Surgeons of the Medieval Universities," it seems well to point out here that they must be considered as representing especially the surgical teaching of the older medical school of Salerno. There are many interesting features of the old teaching that they have embodied in their books. For instance, at Salerno both sutures and ligatures were employed in order to prevent bleeding. We are rather accustomed to think of such uses of thread, and especially the ligature, as being much later inventions. The fact of the matter is, however, that ligatures and sutures were reinvented over and over again and then allowed to go out of use until someone who had no idea of their dangers came to reinvent them once more.[8] Much is often said about the place of Arabian surgery and medicine at this time, and the influence that they had over the medical teaching and thinking of the period. To trust many of the shorter histories of medicine the Arabs must be given credit for more of the medical thought of this time than any other medical writers or thinkers. It is forgotten, however, apparently, that in the southern part of Italy, where Salerno was situated, Greek influence never died out. This had been a Greek colony in the olden time and continued to be known for many centuries after the Christian era as Magna Graecia. Greek medicine, then, had more influence here than anywhere else. As a matter of fact, the beginnings of Salernitan teaching are all Greek and not at all Arabian. This is as true in surgery as in medicine. I have quoted Gurlt in the chapter on "Great Surgeons of the Medieval Universities," insisting that the Salernitan school owed nothing at all to Arabian surgery. Salernitan medicine was, during the twelfth century, just as free from Arabian influence. When Arabian medicine makes itself felt, as pointed out by Pagel in his "Geschichte der Heilkunde im Mittelalter,"[9] far from exerting a beneficial influence, it had a rather unfortunate effect. It led especially to an oversophistication of medicine from the standpoint of drug therapeutics. The Arabian physicians trusted nature very little. In this they were like our forefathers of medicine one hundred years ago, of whom Rush was the typical representative--so history repeats