Recent studies let us reconstruct the medical communities in several towns. In the middle decades of the fourteenth century, Girona's medical population ranged from 29 during 1320 to 54 during 1348 and included physicians, surgeons, barbers, and apothecaries, who served an urban community that ranged between eight and ten thousand. Apothecaries formed the largest group with 29 practitioners, followed by 13 barbers, 6 surgeons, and 6 physicians.

 

Girona's medical community was comparable to Perpignan, which just prior to the Plague had nine physicians and eighteen barbers and surgeons, and Montpellier.

In 1334, Barcelona had 55 health professionals (10 physicians, 8 surgeons, 25 apothecaries, and 12 barbers), while the statistics for Valencia show 57(respectively 10, 9, 20, and 18).

Among medical personnel, however, physicians were fewest in number, perhaps only four or five physicians and/or surgeons per ten thousand of population in Catalonia and Valencia, and six or seven in towns like Valencia, Barcelona, Lleida, or Tortosa.

Catalonia and the Crown of Aragon were much better served by medical personnel than the neighbouring Crown of Castile.

In the decades before the Plague, the size of the medical community increased. In Barcelona and Valencia, for example, the numbers, especially of apothecaries and surgeons, grew by 50 percent between 1310 and 1335.

The Plague is another factor in the size of the medical community at mid-century, because medical personnel experienced relatively higher mortality rates due to their exposure to infected individuals. Girona, for example, which suffered a relatively modest mortality rate of about 15 percent during the first Plague in the summer of 1348, lost 40 percent of its physicians, 25 percent of the barbers, and a fifth of the apothecaries.

Medieval communities, like modern rural ones, were concerned about the shortage of medical personnel, particularly after the devastation of the Plague. The Cortes of Monzón in 1363 provided an alternative licensing procedure for Muslim and Jewish physicians who would not have access to Christian universities, and the registers of the bishop of Barcelona contain instances of licenses being granted to Jewish physicians to treat Christian patients.

Among Muslims or mudéjars, medical practice was carried on by metgesses, female practitioners who served not only as midwives, but also as general physicians and surgeons. Muslim medicine women were used not only by Muslims, but also by Christians as well. It may be that the prohibition contained in Valencia's Furs in 1329 that "no woman may practice medicine or give potions" may have been aimed specifically against these Muslim metgesses and not against women in general.