Note 51 — BOOK XI. CONCERNING THE SICK AND THE DEAD, AND MERCHANTS WHO COME FROM BEYOND SEAS.

“Ludibrium interdum adcrescat.” It would appear from this precautionary measure, that the members of the medical profession, in that age, did not differ greatly from some of their brethren of to-day. The practice of medicine was not highly regarded by the Visigoths, a nation of warriors, and it was often exercised by slaves, as formerly at Rome, and subsequently by barbers and charlatans during the Middle Ages. Malpractice was a term of the broadest significance; the risks assumed by the practitioner, even in ordinary cases, were not compensated for by the fees he was entitled to receive, when successful; and the danger of damages and penalties he incurred where he lost a patient, made the profession anything but an alluring one. After rendering conscientious and assiduous services, to be considered guilty of homicide, and be surrendered to the exasperated relatives of the deceased patient, as a subject for the savage excesses of the Lex Talionis, was not a prospect calculated to advance the interests of medical science.

Not until three centuries later, under the Moorish domination, did the physician and the surgeon acquire the extensive knowledge, and attain the professional eminence, which made the medical colleges of the Spanish Peninsula the centre of that branch of learning, not only of Europe, but of the then known world.—[Ed.]