Sister cities and partner institutions are valuable ways to share ideas and marketing, but few partners can boast more than a millennium of history.
The University of Maryland, Baltimore?s new partner in Italy reopened this year after being shuttered in 1811. Though its origins go back before the 10th century, the Western world?s first medical school near Salerno in Italy accepted guidance and assistance from America?s oldest public medical school for its rebirth.
School of Medicine Dean Dr. E. Albert Reece presented Dean?s Gold Medals to University of Salerno President Raimondo Pasquino and to Dr. Jiulio Corrivetti, chairman of the Scuola Medica Salernitana Foundation, in honor of the school?s first medical classes in 196 years.
“In Europe, 200 years may seem like a relatively short time,” said
Reece, referring to the School of Medicine?s bicentennial. “Salerno has a history that goes back almost 1,200 years.”
By contrast, Davidge Hall, the setting of Thursday?s ceremony, is the oldest teaching facility still in use in the Northern Hemisphere, he said.
Salerno accepted the help of an engineer from UMB in designing its campus, as well as collaboration with the Center for Celiac Research, headed by Salerno graduate Dr. Allessio Fasano. Next year the school will introduce its first master classes in celiac disease.
“Our rebirth did not materialize by looking to the past but by looking at the present and to the future,” Pasquino said. “It is for me … a great honor to be here to celebrate with [your] bicentennial occurrence, the many successes that you have achieved in these years.”
Salerno was a renowned medical school by the 10th century, preserving the combined medical knowledge of Greek, Roman, Arabic and Hebrew cultures, he said. From there, Solarno?s professors developed the natural philosophies that led to the science of Western medicine.
The University of Maryland, Baltimore concluded a year of bicentennial celebrations with the medal ceremony as well as a discussion of celiac disease by Fasano and an open house.
