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Osler, William, 1849-1919

"A Series of Lectures Delivered at Yale University on the Silliman Foundation in April, 1913"

In this way arose two different
types of mediaeval university. The universities of Northern Italy were
largely controlled by students, who were grouped in different "nations."
They arranged the lectures and had control of the appointment of
teachers. On the other hand, in the universities founded on the Paris
model the masters had control of the studies, though the students, also
in nations, managed their own affairs.
Two universities have a special interest at this period in connection
with the development of medical studies, Bologna and Montpellier. At
the former the study of anatomy was revived. In the knowledge of the
structure of the human body no advance had been made for more than a
thousand years--since Galen's day. In the process of translation from
Greek to Syriac, from Syriac to Arabic, from Arabic to Hebrew, and from
Hebrew or Arabic to Latin, both the form and thought of the old Greek
writers were not infrequently confused and often even perverted, and
Galen's anatomy had suffered severely in the transmission. Our earliest
knowledge of the teaching of medicine at Bologna is connected with a
contemporary of Dante, Taddeo Alderotti, who combined Arabian erudition
with the Greek spirit.


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