Constantine the African

The Antidotarium of Nicholas Salernitanus, about 1100, became the popular pharmacopoeia of the Middle Ages, and many modern preparations may be traced to it.

The most prominent man of the school is Constantinus Africanus, a native of Carthage, who, after numerous journeys, reached Salernum about the middle of the 11th century.

He was familiar with the works both of the Greeks and of the Arabs, and it was largely through his translations that the works of Rases and Avicenna became known in the West.

One work above all others spread the fame of the school, the Regimen Sanitatis, or Flos Medicinae, as it is sometimes called, a poem on popular medicine.

But he does not seem to have done much directly for medicine.

The Greco-Arabic learning passed into Europe through two sources.

As I have already mentioned, Constantinus Africanus, a North African Christian monk, widely travelled and learned in languages, came to Salernum and translated many works from Arabic into Latin, particularly those of Hippocrates and Galen.

The Pantegni of the latter became one of the most popular textbooks of the Middle Ages.