Trotula of Salerno

Trotula is a name referring to a group of three texts on women's medicine, the Trotula, that were composed in the southern Italian port town of Salerno in the 12th century. The name derives from a historic female figure, Trota of Salerno, a physician and medical writer who was associated with one of the three texts. However, "Trotula" came to be understood as a real person in the Middle Ages and because the so-called Trotula texts circulated widely throughout medieval Europe, from Spain to Poland, and Sicily to Ireland, "Trotula" has historic importance in "her" own right.

In the 12th century, the southern Italian port town of Salerno was widely reputed as "the most important center for the introduction of Arabic medicine into Western Europe". In referring to the School of Salerno in the 12th century, historians actually mean an informal community of masters and pupils who, over the course of the 12th century, developed more or less formal methods of instruction and investigation; there is no evidence of any physical or legal entity before the 13th century.

Conditions of Women, Treatments for Women, and Women’s Cosmetics are usually referred to collectively as The Trotula. They cover topics from childbirth to cosmetics, relying on varying sources from Galen to oral traditions, providing practical instructions. These works vary in both organization and content. Conditions of Women and Women’s Cosmetics circulated anonymously until they were combined with Treatments for Women sometime in the late 12th century. For the next several hundred years, the Trotula ensemble circulated throughout Europe, reaching its greatest popularity in the 14th century. More than 130 copies exist today of the Latin texts, and over 60 copies of the many medieval vernacular translations.

The Liber de sinthomatibus mulierum ("Book on the Conditions of Women") was novel in its adoption of the new Arabic medicine that had just begun to make inroads into Europe. As Green demonstrated in 1996, Conditions of Women draws heavily on the gynecological and obstetrical chapters of the Viaticum, Constantine the African's Latin translation of Ibn al-Jazzar's Arabic Zad al-musafir, which had been completed in the late 11th century. Arabic medicine was more speculative and philosophical, drawing from the principles of Galen. Galen, as opposed to other notable physicians, believed that menstruation was a necessary and healthy purgation. Galen asserted that women are colder than men and unable to “cook” their nutrients; thus they must eliminate excess substance through menstruation. Indeed, the author presents a positive view of the role of menstruation in women's health and fertility: "Menstrual blood is special because it carries in it a living being. It works like a tree. Before bearing fruit, a tree must first bear flowers. Menstrual blood is like the flower: it must emerge before the fruit—the baby—can be born." Another condition that the author addresses at length is suffocation of the womb; this results from, among other causes, an excess of female semen (another Galenic idea). Seemingly conflicted between two different theoretical positions—one that suggested it was possible for the womb to "wander" within the body, and another which saw such movement as anatomically impossible—the author seems to admit the possibility that the womb rises to the respiratory organs. Other issues discussed at length are treatment for and the proper regimen for a newly born child. There are discussions on topics covering menstrual disorders and uterine prolapse, chapters on childbirth and pregnancy, in addition to many others. All the named authorities cited in the Liber de sinthomatibus mulierum are male: Hippocrates, Oribasius, Dioscorides, Paulus, and Justinus.

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