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The truth of the matter may perhaps never be fully established, but this at least is certain the tradition in regard to Trotula could never have arisen had not women held a far different position among the Arabians of this period from that accorded them in contemporary Christendom.
It was also printed at Basle, 1566, and at Leipzig as late as 1778, which would serve to show how much attention it has attracted even in comparatively recent times. After Trotula we have a number of women physicians of Salerno whose names have come down to us.
Two books are attributed to Trotula; one bears the title, "De Passionibus Mulierum," and the other has been called "Trotula Minor," or "Summula Secundum Trotulam," and is a compendium of what she wrote. This is probably due to some disciple, but seems to have existed almost in her own time.
Her book contains, also, some directions for various cosmetics. How many of these are original, however, is difficult to say. Trotula's name had become a word to conjure with, and many a quack in the after time tried to make capital for his remedies in this line by attributing them to Trotula.
Indeed, the uncertainty is even greater than this implies, for, according to some writers, "Trotula" is merely the title of a book. Such an authority as Malgaigne, however, believed that such a woman existed, and that the works accredited to her are authentic.
This wise matron has been identified with Trotula, many of the details of whose life have been brought to light by De Renzi, in his "Story of the School of Salerno." According to very old tradition, Trotula belonged to the family of Ruggiero.
It was not the adoption of Arabian medicines, however, that has made the school at Salerno famous both in rhyme and prose, but rather the fact that women there practised the healing art. Greatest among them was Trotula, who lived in the eleventh century, and whose learning is reputed to have equalled that of the greatest physicians of the day.
De Renzi has made out a rather good case for the tradition that Trotula was the wife of John Platearius I so called because there were probably three professors of that name. Trotula was, according to this, the mother of the second Platearius, and the grandmother of the third, all of them distinguished members of the faculty at Salerno.
There were medical and surgical clinics, foundling hospitals, Sisters of Charity, men and women professors among the latter the famous Trotula and apothecaries. Dissections were carried out, chiefly upon animals, and human subjects were occasionally used.
The first definite evidence with regard to it comes in the life of Trotula, who seems to have been the head of the department. Some of her books are well known, and often quoted from, and she contributed to a symposium on the treatment of disease, in which there are contributions, also, from men professors of Salerno at the time.
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