Daremberg concludes his admirable treatise on the school of Salerno with a pathetic account of a visit which he made to that city in 1849; he tells how he wandered through its streets, once so active with the movements of the students and professors of the medical sciences, and he laments that not a single remembrance of its illustrious masters remains to remind the visitor of its ancient glories. Not a stone of the edifices, not an echo of its traditions, not even a manuscript in any library remains to remind us of the learned and venerable men and women who did so much for medicine in those dark ages. A few years back I visited Salerno myself, and I found not even a decent hotel in which to remain a night or two. I rested at the best hostelry I could find, and after dinner proposed to the friend who accompanied me, that on the following day we should visit Pæstum and see its noble ruined temples. As we chatted and turned over the pages of the visitors’ book, we came across a long and doleful account of an Englishman who some few years previously had visited Pæstum from Salerno, and was captured by brigands; he was detained their prisoner for many weeks, and only at last liberated, after threats of mutilation, by the payment of a heavy ransom. We did not go to Pæstum; we left Salerno early the following morning and went to Amalfi. The hotel was gloomy and crumbling into decay, the rooms were all empty, the landlord was suggestive of the host in some of the old stories of our boyish days. Thus has Salerno fallen. Most travellers now make La Cava their headquarters, and do not stay at Salerno at all. CHAPTER VI. THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. The Crusades.—Astrology. The Crusades were of the highest importance to the development of Western civilization; they brought the European world into contact with the ancient wisdom of the East, they greatly stimulated commerce, aroused a spirit of restlessness and inquiry, and thus enlarged men’s minds, stimulated them to adventure and heroic deeds, improved the art of war and the invention of arms, etc. By bringing the Crusaders into contact with the Saracens many new medicines were introduced into practice; physicians followed the armies to the East, and thus had opportunities of studying the healing art as practised in the midst of ancient civilizations. To a great extent the present advantages we enjoy are due to the influence of the Crusades, which brought to Europe many arts and sciences we should not have otherwise learned. One of the evil consequences of the Crusades was the introduction into Europe of epidemic diseases and contagious disorders which have always had their home in the East. Thus were introduced the plague, leprosy, and the disorders which are bred of filth and promiscuous living.