The
Schola Medica Salernitana was the world's first
medical school. Situated on the Tyrrhenian Sea in the
south Italian city of
Salerno, it was the most important source of medical knowledge in
Western Europe at the time. Arabic medical treatises, both those that were translations of Greek texts and those that were originally written in Arabic, had accumulated in the
library of
Montecassino, where they were translated into
Latin; thus the received lore of
Hippocrates,
Galen and
Dioscorides was supplemented and invigorated by
Arabic medical practice, known from contacts with
Sicily and
North Africa. As a result, the medical practitioners of Salerno, both men and women, were unrivalled in the medieval Western Mediterranean for practical concerns.