Woman in Science Part 23

What a beautiful prototype of another ministering angel in the same land nearly thirty centuries later, amid similar scenes of suffering--of one who, though unsung by immortal bard, the world will never let die--the courageous, the self-sacrificing Florence Nightingale.

That there were in Greece from the earliest times numerous women possessed of a high degree of medical skill is evidenced by many of the ancient writers. They were what we would call medical herbalists, and not a few of them exhibited a natural genius for determining the curative virtues of rare plants and a remarkable sagacity in preparing from them juices, infusions and soothing anodynes. Others there were who, in addition to evincing the cunning of leechcraft in the therapeutic art, were distinguished for nimble hands in treating painful lesions and festering sores, and who, when occasion required, were experts in "quickly drawing the barb from the flesh and healing the wound of the soldier."

In the Odyssey special mention is made of the surpa.s.sing expertness of the Egyptian female leech, Polyd.a.m.na, whose name signifies the subduer of many diseases. The land of the Nile, the poet tells us, "teems with drugs," and

"There ev'ry man in skill medicinal Excels, for these are sons of Paeon all."

In this favored cradle of civilization, to which Greece owed so much of its knowledge and culture, there were many women who, like Polyd.a.m.na, achieved distinction in the healing art, and many, too, we have reason to think, who communicated their knowledge to their sisters in the fair land of h.e.l.las.

But not only were there in Greece women physicians like Agamede, who were noted for their general medicinal knowledge and practice, but there were also others who made a specialty of treating ailments peculiar to their own s.e.x. This we learn from a pa.s.sage in the _Hippolytus_ of Euripides, wherein the nurse of Phaedra addressed the suffering queen in the following words:

"If under pains Thou labor, such as may not be revealed, To succor thee thy female friends are here.

But if the other s.e.x may know thy sufferings Let the physician try his healing art."

More positive information, however, is afforded us by the ancient Roman author Hyginus, who, in writing of the Greek maiden, Agnodice, tells us how the medical profession was legalized for all the free-born women of Athens. Instead of a literal translation of Hyginus, the version of his story is given in the quaint language of one Mrs. Celleor, a noted midwife in the reign of James II.

"Among the subtile Athenians," writes Mrs. Celleor, "a law at one time forbade women to study or practice medicine or physick on pain of death, which law continued some time, during which many women perished, both in child-bearing and by private diseases, their modesty not permitting them to admit of men either to deliver or cure them. But G.o.d finally stirred up the spirit of Agnodice, a n.o.ble maid, to pity the miserable condition of her own s.e.x, and hazard her life to help them; which, to enable herself to do, she apparelled her like a man and became the scholar of Hierophilos, the most learned physician of the time; and, having learnt the art, she found out a woman that had long languished under private diseases, and made proffer of her service to cure her, which the sick person refused, thinking her to be a man; but, when Agnodice discovered that she was a maid, the woman committed herself into her hands, who cured her perfectly; and after her many others, with the like skill and industry, so that in a short time she became the successful and beloved physician of the whole s.e.x."

When it became known that Agnodice was a woman "she was like to be condemned to death for transgressing the law--which, coming to the ears of the n.o.ble women, they ran before the Areopagites, and, the house being encompa.s.sed by most women of the city, the ladies entered before the judges and told them they would no longer account them for husbands and friends, but for cruel enemies, that condemned her to death who restored to them their health, protesting they would all die with her if she were put to death. This caused the magistrates to disannul the law and make another, which gave gentlewomen leave to study and practice all parts of physick to their own s.e.x, giving large stipends to those that did it well and carefully. And there were many n.o.ble women who studied that practice and taught it publicly in their schools as long as Athens flourished in learning."[182]

After the time of Agnodice many Greek women won distinction in medicine, some as pract.i.tioners in the healing art, others as writers on medical subjects. Nor were their activities confined to the land of h.e.l.las. They were also found succoring the infirm and instructing the poor and ignorant in Italy, Egypt and Asia Minor. Among these was Theano, the wife of Pythagoras, who, after her husband's death, a.s.sumed charge of his school of philosophy, and who, like her husband and teacher, was distinguished for her attainments in medicine. The names of many others occur in the pages of Hippocrates, Galen and Pliny; and frequent references are made to the works and prescriptions of women doctors who enjoyed more than ordinary celebrity during their time. Of these female pract.i.tioners many confined their practice to the diseases of women and children, while others excelled in surgery and pharmacy, as well as in general medical practice.

Among the medical women whom antiquity especially honored, particularly during the Greco-Roman period, were Origenia, Aspasia--not the famous wife of Pericles--and Cleopatra, who was not, however, as is often a.s.serted, the ill-fated queen of Egypt. Likewise deserving of special mention was Metradora, of whom there is still preserved in Florence a ma.n.u.script work on the diseases of women,[183] and Antiochis, to whom her admiring countrymen erected a statue bearing the following inscription: "Antiochis, daughter of Diodotos of Tlos; the council and the commune of the city of Tlos, in appreciation of her medical ability, erected at their own expense this statue in her honor."

Pliny, the naturalist, felicitates the Romans on having been for nearly six hundred years free from the brood of doctors. These he does not hesitate to berate roundly. His statement regarding the non-existence of physicians, it must be observed, is somewhat exaggerated. It is true that during the first five centuries there were no professional doctors who lived entirely on their practice. There were, however, many men who had by long experience gained an extensive knowledge of drugs and simples, and who were able to dress wounds and treat diseases with considerable success.

The first Greek freeman to practice medicine in Rome was one Archagatos, about two centuries B.C. He was soon followed by one of his countrymen named Asclepiades. These two soon built up a great reputation as successful pract.i.tioners, and were held in the highest esteem by the people of Rome. In consequence of this and of the favorable conditions offered foreigners for the practice of the healing art, there was soon a large influx of physicians and surgeons from Greece, not only into Rome but also into other parts of Italy.

Not long after the arrival of Greek doctors in the capital of the Roman world we learn of certain women physicians in Rome who were held in high repute. Among these were Victoria and Leoparda, both mentioned by the medical writer, Theodorus Priscia.n.u.s. To Victoria, Priscia.n.u.s dedicates the third book of his _Rerum Medicarum_, and in the preface to this book he refers to her as one who has not only an accurate knowledge of medicine, but also as one who is a keen observer and experienced pract.i.tioner.

The word _medica_, which occurs in Latin authors of the cla.s.sical period, testifies to the existence of the woman doctor as early as the age of Augustus.

But the most important doc.u.ments bearing on women physicians, not only in the city of Rome but also in Italy, Gaul and the Iberian peninsula, are the large body of epigraphic monuments which have recently been brought to light, and which prove beyond all doubt that women were not only obstetricians, but that they were successful pract.i.tioners in the entire field of medical art. Thus a funeral tablet found in Portugal tells of a woman who was a most excellent physician--_medica optima_--while another describes the deceased not only as a woman incomparable for her virtues, but also as a mistress of medical science, _antistes disciplinae in medicina fuit_.

The Greek word for _medica_--_iatromaia_--occasionally found in some of the inscriptions, seems to refer specially to women of Greek origin or birth. This is particularly true of a monument erected to one Valiae, who is designated as _Kalista iatromaia_--the best doctor.[184]

Among the many women who became converts to Christianity during the early ages of the church a goodly number were physicians. Unfortunately, our information respecting these votaries of the healing art is not as complete as we could wish. One of the most noted of them is St.

Theodosia, whose name is given in the Roman martyrology for the twenty-ninth of May. She was the mother of the martyr, St. Procopius, and was distinguished for her knowledge of medicine and surgery, both of which she practiced in Rome with the most signal success. She died a heroic death by the sword during the persecution of Diocletian.

Another woman who was as eminent for her knowledge of medicine as for her holiness of life was St. Nicerata, who lived in Constantinople during the reign of the emperor Arcadius. She is said to have cured St.

John Chrysostom of an affection of the stomach from which he was a sufferer.

To the Roman lady Fabiola, remarkable as the daughter of one of the most ill.u.s.trious patrician families of Rome, but more remarkable for her sanct.i.ty and her boundless charity toward the poor, was due the erection of the first hospital--a n.o.ble structure which she founded in Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, which was then the port of entry to the capital of the Roman empire. Here the n.o.ble matron received the poor and suffering from all parts, and did everything in her power to afford them succor in their wants and infirmities.

It is difficult for us now, when hospitals and charitable inst.i.tutions of all kinds are so common, to understand what an innovation Fabiola's unheard-of inst.i.tution was considered by her contemporaries. For her method of treating the needy and the suffering was as different from that which had hitherto obtained as were the debasing lessons of heathendom from the elevating precepts of the Gospels.

No wonder that the news of this G.o.dlike work was soon wafted to the uttermost bounds of the earth; that, in the words of St. Jerome, "summer should announce in Britain what Egypt and Parthia had learned in the spring." No wonder that the same eloquent hermit of Bethlehem should proclaim the foundress of this home of the indigent and the afflicted to be "the glory of the church, the astonishment of the Gentiles, the mother of the poor and the consolation of the saints." No wonder that, in contemplating her countless acts of charity, he should ignore the fact that Fabiola was a daughter of the Fabii and a descendant of the renowned Quintus Maximus, who, by his sage counsel, had saved his country from her enemies, and that, recalling the words of Virgil, he should declare: "If I had a hundred tongues and a hundred mouths and iron lungs, I should not be able to enumerate all the maladies to which Fabiola gave the most prodigal care and tenderness--to the extent even of making the poor who were in health envy the good fortune of those who were sick."[185] No wonder that Fabiola's funeral, which brought together the whole of Rome, was more like an apotheosis than the transfer of the remains of the deceased to their last resting-place, and that Jerome should declare, "the glory of Furius and Papirius and Scipio and Pompey, when they triumphed over the Gauls, the Sammites, Numantia and Pontus" was less than that which was spontaneously accorded to Fabiola, the solace of the sick and the comforter of the distressed.

For she had in her hospital at Ostia established a type of inst.i.tution that was to effect more for ameliorating the condition of suffering humanity than anything that had before been dreamed of; something that was to contribute immensely to the efforts of physicians and surgeons in minimizing the sad ravages of wounds and disease; something whose beneficent effects were to be felt through the centuries and in every part of the world down to the wards of the military hospital at Scutari, guarded by the watchful eyes of Florence Nightingale, and to the leper-tenanted lazarettos, blessed by the ministrations of Father Damien and the Sisters of Charity, on the desolate sh.o.r.es of plague-stricken Molokai.

After the fall of the Roman empire and through the long period of the Middle Ages, when the monasteries and convents were almost the only centers of learning and culture for the greater part of Europe, the practice of medicine was to a great extent in the hands of monks and nuns. For every religious house was then a hospital as well as a school, a place where drugs and ointments were compounded and distributed, as well as a place where ma.n.u.scripts were transcribed and illuminated. At a time when there were but few professional physicians and when these few were widely separated from one another, the only places where the poor could always be sure to find free medical treatment as well as abundant alms were those sanctuaries of knowledge and charity where the love of one's neighbor was never lost sight of in the love of science and literature. And during this time, too, the care of the sick was regarded as a duty inc.u.mbent on everyone, but particularly on those devoted to the service of G.o.d in religion. It was considered, above all, as a duty devolving on women, especially on the lady in the castle and on the nun in the convent.

The old romance of _Sir Isumbras_ gives us a charming picture of the nuns of long ago receiving the wounded knight and ministering unto him until he was made whole and strong, as witness the following verses:

"The nonnes of him they were full fayne, For that he had the Saracenes slayne And those haythene houndes.

And of his paynnes sare ganne them rewe.

Ilke a day they made salves new And laid them till his woundes; They gave him metis and drynkis lythe, And heled the knyghte wunder swythe."

So universally during mediaeval times was the healing art considered as pertaining to woman's calling that it became a part of the curriculum in convent schools; and no girl's education was considered complete unless she had an elementary knowledge of medicine and of that part of surgery which deals with the treatment of wounds. For during those troublous times a woman was liable to be called upon at any time to nurse the sick wayfarer or dress the wounds of those who had been maimed in battle or in the tourney.

Ill.u.s.trations of these facts are found in many of the romances and fabliaux of the Middle Ages. Thus, when a sick or wounded man was given hospitality in a chateau or castle it was not the seigneur, but his wife and daughters, as being better versed in medicine and surgery, who acted as nurses and doctors and took entire charge of the patient until his recovery.

In the exquisite little story of _Auca.s.sin et Nicolette_, the heroine is pictured as setting the dislocated shoulder of her lover in the following simple but touching language:

"Nicolette searched his hurt, and perceived that his shoulder was out of joint. She handled it so deftly with her white hands, and used such skillful surgery that, by the grace of G.o.d, who loveth all true lovers, the shoulder came back to its place. Then she plucked flowers and fresh gra.s.ses and green leaf.a.ge, and bound them tightly about the setting with the hem torn from her shift, and he was altogether healed."

And in the mediaeval Latin poem, _Waltharius_, written by a German monk, Ekkehard, reference is made to a sanguinary contest in which one of the combatants falls to the earth seriously wounded. Seeing this, Alpharides, in a loud voice, summons a young girl, who timidly comes forward and dresses the unfortunate man's wound.[186]

Still more to our purpose is a pa.s.sage from the famous epic poem, _Tristan and Isolde_, written by _G.o.dfrey of Strasburg_, in which Isolde, accompanied by her mother and cousin, is represented as administering restoratives to Tristan, who had fallen exhausted after his combat with the dragon. It shows that women, in accompanying an army to the field of battle, always went provided with bandages and medicaments for dressing wounds and fractured limbs. Similarly Angelica, in _Orlando Furioso_, and Ermina, in _Jerusalem Delivered_, are portrayed as surgeons with deftness of hand and leeches with rare knowledge and skill.

The frequent introduction of women doctors into the poems and romances of the Middle Ages would of itself, if other evidence were wanting, suffice to show what an important role women played in medicine and surgery at a time when, in many parts of Europe, women were far better educated and far more cultured than men--"when the knights and barons of France and Germany were inclined to look upon reading and writing as unmanly and almost degrading accomplishments, fit only for priests or monks, and especially for priests or monks not too well born."[187]

In the instances just quoted, as well as those mentioned by Homer and Euripides, the writers do no more than faithfully reflect conditions which then obtained, and truthfully report what were the occupations of women when their status was so different from what it is to-day. But, fortunately, we do not have to rely on works of the imagination for our knowledge respecting the women pract.i.tioners of the healing art, either during the Homeric period or during that which intervened between the downfall of Rome and the dawn of the Renaissance. For the history of medicine during mediaeval times affords too many examples of women who became famous for their knowledge of medicine, as well as for their success in surgical and medical practice, to leave any doubt about the matter. Besides this, we have still the writings of many of these women, and are thus able to judge of their competency in those branches of knowledge on which they shed so great l.u.s.ter.

One of the most noted of them was the Benedictine abbess, St. Hildegard, of Bingen on the Rhine, who was eminent not only as a theologian but also as a writer whose treatises on various branches of science are justly regarded as the most important productions of the kind during the Middle Ages prior to the time of Albertus Magnus. Besides this, she not only wrote many books on _materia medica_, on pathology, physiology and therapeutics, but, as a pract.i.tioner, she gloriously sustained the best traditions of her s.e.x in both theoretical and practical medicine.

Her work ent.i.tled _Liber Simplicis Medicinae_, which deals with what in the Saint's time was called "simples"--for the belief was then current that each plant or herb was or provided a specific for some disease--contains accounts of many plants used in _materia medica_, as well as statements of their importance in therapeutics. Her descriptions often indicate an observer of exceptionally keen perception and one whose knowledge of science was far in advance of her epoch. The same observations may be made respecting Hildegard 's work, _Liber Compositae Medicinae_, in which she treats of the causes, signs and treatment of diseases.[188]

Still more remarkable, in many respects, is a treatise in nine books, ent.i.tled _Physica_ or _Liber Subtilitatum Diversarum Naturarum Creaturarum_, which, among other things, treats of the various elements, of plants, trees, minerals, fish, birds, quadrupeds, and of the manner in which they may be of service to man. Of so great importance was this book considered that several editions of it were printed as early as the sixteenth century. No less an authority than the late Rudolph Virchow, the founder of cellular pathology, characterizes it as an early _materia medica_, curiously complete, considering the age to which it belongs.[189] And Haeser, in his history of medicine, directs attention to the historical value of the book, declaring it to be "an independent German treatise, based chiefly on popular experience."

Dr. F. A. Reuss, of the University of Wurtzburg, at the conclusion of his _Prolegomena_ to the _Physica_ published in Migne's _Patrologia_, expresses himself as follows regarding the writings and medical knowledge of the ill.u.s.trious abbess of Bingen: "Among all the saintly _religieuses_ who, during the Middle Ages, practiced medicine or wrote treatises on it, the first, without contradiction, is Hildegard.

According to the monk Theodoric, who was an eye witness, she had to so high a degree the gift of healing that no sick person had recourse to her without being restored to health. There is among the books of this prophetic virgin a work which treats of physics and medicine. Its t.i.tle is _De Natura Nominis Elementorum Diversarumque Creaturarum_, and it embodies, as the same Theodoric fully explains, the secrets of nature which were revealed to the saint by the prophetic spirit. All who wish to write the history of the medical and natural sciences should read this book, in which the holy virgin, initiated into all the secrets of nature which were then known, and having received special a.s.sistance from above, thoroughly examines and scrutinizes all that which was, until then, buried in darkness and concealed from the eyes of mortals.

It is certain that Hildegard was acquainted with many things of which the doctors of the Middle Ages were ignorant, and which the investigators of our own age, after rediscovering them, have announced as something entirely new."[190]

The life and works of St. Hildegard throw a flood of light on many subjects that have long been veiled in mystery. It explains why the convents of the later Middle Ages were so famed as curative centers and why the sick flocked to them for relief from far and near. It reveals the real agencies employed in effecting the extraordinary cures that were reported in so many religious houses--cures so extraordinary that they were usually regarded by the mult.i.tude as miraculous--and discloses the secret of the success of so many nuns in the alleviation of physical and mental sufferings. It was not because they were thaumaturges, but because they were good nurses, and because of their thorough knowledge of the healing art, that they were able to diagnose and prescribe for diseases of all kinds with a success which, in the estimation of the mult.i.tude, savored of the supernatural.

There was also another reason for the fame of convents as sanctuaries of health. They were usually situated in healthy locations where there was an abundance of pure water, fresh air and cheerful sunshine. Then there were likewise a wholesome diet, good sanitary conditions, and, above all, regularity of life.

The same can be said of the hospitals connected with the convents. They were not like some of the public hospitals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in many of the large cities of Europe--repulsive, prison-like structures, with narrow windows and devoid of light and air and the most necessary hygienic appliances--inst.i.tutions that were hospitals in name, but which were in reality too frequently breeding places of disease and death.[191]

Unlike these, the hospitals presided over by nuns of the type of Hildegard were splendid roomy structures with large windows and abundance of light, pure air, with special provisions for the privacy of the patients, and with sanitary arrangements that not only precluded the dissemination of disease but which contributed materially to those marvelous cures which the good people of the time attributed to supernatural agencies rather than to the medical knowledge and skill of the devoted nuns,[192] who were the real conquerors of disease and death.

But the inmates of the cloister were not the only women who, during the Middle Ages, achieved distinction by their writings on medical subjects and by their signal success in the practice of the healing art. In various parts of Europe, but especially in Italy and France, there were at this time among women, outside as well as inside convent walls, many daughters of aesculapius and sisters of Hygeia who stood in such high repute among their contemporaries that they received the same honors and emoluments as were accorded to their masculine colleagues.

This was particularly the case in Salerno, which was the venerated mother of all Christian medical schools, and which, for nine centuries, was universally regarded as "the unquestioned fountain and archetype of orthodox medicine." Situated on the Gulf of Salerno, and laved by the cerulean waters of the Tyrrhenian sea, the _Civitas Hippocratica_, as it was called on its medals, rejoiced in a salubrious climate, and was celebrated throughout the world as the "City sacred to Phoebus, the sedulous nurse of Minerva, the fountain of physic, the votary of medicine, the handmaid of Nature, the destroyer of disease and the strong adversary of death."[193] For to this favored city flocked from all quarters the lame and the halt and those afflicted with the tortures of disease and the disabilities of advancing years. The n.o.ble and the simple, crowned heads as well as the poorest of the poor, were found there, all of them in quest of life's most precious boon--health and strength.

Never did the far-famed sanctuary of the G.o.d of medicine in Epidaurus witness such an influx of invalids as gathered in the hospitals of Salerno and pressed through the streets of the Hippocratic city, seeking the aid of those doctors whose marvelous cures had given them a world-wide reputation. Small wonder, then, that the _Regimen Santatis Salernitanum_--that famous code of health of the school of Salerno--has been translated into almost all the languages of modern Europe, and that since 1480 no fewer than two hundred and fifty editions of it have been published. "Not to have been familiar with it from beginning to end, not to have been able to quote it orally as occasion might require, would, during the Middle Ages, have cast serious suspicion upon the professional culture of any physician."[194] But the n.o.blest claims of the Hippocratic city to the grat.i.tude of humanity yet remain to be told.

A German traveler in the thirteenth century wrote: