[Ragusa (Dubrovnik) community physicians of the Middle Ages]

Several medieval cities on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea renewed the Byzantine tradition of hiring a public physician, thus offering their citizens the service of qualified doctors. The case of Ragusa is typical. The archives of this city-state have been preserved since the XIIIth century; the names, origins and professional titles of public physicians are well known. The conditions of their employment reveal not only their duties and the salary but also many aspects of communal hygiene and medical ethics.