After the fall of the Roman empire and through the long period of the Middle Ages, when the monasteries and convents were almost the only centers of learning and culture for the greater part of Europe, the practice of medicine was to a great extent in the hands of monks and nuns. For every religious house was then a hospital as well as a school, a place where drugs and ointments were compounded and distributed, as well as a place where manuscripts were transcribed and illuminated. At a time when there were but few professional physicians and when these few were widely separated from one another, the only places where the poor could always be sure to find free medical treatment as well as abundant alms were those sanctuaries of knowledge and charity where the love of one's neighbor was never lost sight of in the love of science and literature. And during this time, too, the care of the sick was regarded as a duty incumbent on everyone, but particularly on those devoted to the service of God in religion. It was considered, above all, as a duty devolving on women, especially on the lady in the castle and on the nun in the convent. The old romance of _Sir Isumbras_ gives us a charming picture of the nuns of long ago receiving the wounded knight and ministering unto him until he was made whole and strong, as witness the following verses: "The nonnes of him they were full fayne, For that he had the Saracenes slayne And those haythene houndes. And of his paynnes sare ganne them rewe. Ilke a day they made salves new And laid them till his woundes; They gave him metis and drynkis lythe, And heled the knyghte wunder swythe." So universally during mediaeval times was the healing art considered as pertaining to woman's calling that it became a part of the curriculum in convent schools; and no girl's education was considered complete unless she had an elementary knowledge of medicine and of that part of surgery which deals with the treatment of wounds. For during those troublous times a woman was liable to be called upon at any time to nurse the sick wayfarer or dress the wounds of those who had been maimed in battle or in the tourney. Illustrations of these facts are found in many of the romances and fabliaux of the Middle Ages. Thus, when a sick or wounded man was given hospitality in a chateau or castle it was not the seigneur, but his wife and daughters, as being better versed in medicine and surgery, who acted as nurses and doctors and took entire charge of the patient until his recovery. In the exquisite little story of _Aucassin et Nicolette_, the heroine is pictured as setting the dislocated shoulder of her lover in the following simple but touching language: