It was not until the close of the eighth century that a regular course of medical instruction was founded, the first of the kind being organised at Salerno, in the kingdom of Naples. Alexander of Tralles, a noted physician, flourished in the middle of the sixth century. No Greek doctor equalled him since the days of Hippocrates in regard to his knowledge of his art in those primitive days. He is said to have possessed to a high degree the art of diagnosis, and he laid down as a principle, that no decision should be arrived at as to the treatment of a case until the specific causes of disease had been carefully considered. His depreciation of violent aperients, his views on melancholia and gout, and his generally common-sense treatment, stamped him as a man of superior attainments and ability. He was the first to resort to bleeding from the jugular vein, and to use iron in certain diseases affecting the blood. It must not be imagined that the Roman practitioners of medicine were ill-paid, for it is recorded that Stertimus made some £6500 a year, and Canie, a surgeon, is said to have received £2000 for one operation, which contrasts well with fees of modern times. Votive offerings for health to the Roman deities were frequent, and sometimes consisted of land, animals, coin, jewellery, and other articles. Other bribes which have been discovered near ancient shrines are terra-cotta figures of deities, human beings, animals, and also portions of human anatomy, such as the liver or stomach. This superstition still exists, and is practised in many parts of Italy, the peasants making votive offerings similar to those of two thousand years ago. The object of offering models of various portions of the body to special deities, was doubtless to propitiate the god to heal that special part in which the patient believed his complaint originated. This custom of making offerings to the gods, called _donaria_ by the Romans, originated at a very early period. They often took the form of land, buildings, cattle, tools of trade, jewellery, and cast-off clothes. Thus the temple of Artemis Brauronia was filled with women’s clothing. In the temples of the healing gods, instruments of surgery, pharmaceutical appliances, painted tablets representing miraculous healings, and great numbers of models of various parts of the human frame, composed of metal, stone, and terra-cotta, were deposited.