Woman in Science Part 24

"Laudibus aeternum nullum negat esse Salernum Illuc pro morbis totus circ.u.mfluit orbis."[195]

This was because Salerno was universally recognized as the "day star"

and "morning glory" of the best culture in the healing art, and, still more, because of the thorough instruction she gave in her schools of medicine and the preeminence she so long held in every department of medical lore.

The course of study in medicine was long and thorough, and the candidate applying for a degree had to pa.s.s a rigid examination and give proof not only of his proficiency in every branch of the healing art, but also of perfect acquaintance with the various branches of science and letters as well. At the time of Frederick II, who organized all the different schools of Salerno into a single university, a three years' course in philosophy and literature was required before one could present himself for entrance into the school of medicine. The courses in medicine lasted five years, at least, after which a year of practice with an old physician was required. In addition to this, if the candidate wished to practice surgery he was obliged to devote one year to the study of human anatomy and to the dissection of human bodies. Considering the progress of knowledge since the time of Frederick II, it must be admitted that the legal requirements enforced by the faculty of Salerno compare favorably with those of the best of our medical schools of to-day.

Still more to the credit of Salerno, long known as the Athens of the two Sicilies, was her boundless liberality toward scholarship and culture regardless of s.e.x. For, with a chivalrous admiration for intellect, wherever found, and with a sense of intellectual justice that has put to shame all medical schools outside of Italy, until less than fifty years ago, the school of Salerno was the first to throw open its portals to women as well as men, and give to an admiring world a number of women--those celebrated _mulieres Salernitanae_--who were eminent not only as physicians, but also as professors of the theory and practice of medicine. For this reason, if for no other, it can be truly affirmed that "No school of medicine in any age or country, if only for this, can ever over-peer her in renown; and, even as formerly in the universities of Europe, at the bare mention of the name of the learned Cujacius, every scholar instinctively uncovered himself, so at the very name of Salernum, the fount and nurse of rational medicine, every physician should recall her memory 'with mute thanks and secret ecstasy' as among the most spotless and venerated chapters in the history of his art."[196]

The most noted professor and successful pract.i.tioner among the women of Salerno was Trotula, wife of the distinguished physician, John Platearius, and a member of the old n.o.ble family of the Ruggiero. She flourished during the eleventh century and enjoyed a reputation as a physician that was not inferior to that of the most noted doctors of her time. Besides occupying a chair in the school of medicine and having an extensive practice, she was the author of many works on medicine which had a great vogue among her contemporaries. Some of them, especially those relating to diseases of her own s.e.x,[197] were published several times after the invention of printing, and many ma.n.u.script copies of her works are still found in various libraries of Europe. But she did not confine her practice to the diseases of women. She was also well versed in general medicine and exhibited, besides, as her works testify, marked skill as a surgeon in many cases that would even now be considered as peculiarly difficult of treatment.

One of her books was ent.i.tled _De Compositione Medicamentorum_--the Compounding of Medicaments--and it was this work, doubtless, that gave her much of the fame she enjoyed beyond the confines of Italy.

Ruteboeuf, a noted French trouvere of the thirteenth century, gives us a quaint picture of a scene frequently witnessed in his day. Crowds were frequently attracted by herbalists--venders of simples--who, stationed at street corners or in other public places, near tables covered with a cloth of flaring colors, were wont to descant, somewhat after the style of certain of our patent-medicine hawkers and quack-salvers, upon the extraordinary curative properties of the various drugs and panaceas which they had for sale.

"Good people," one of these traveling herb doctors would begin, "I am not one of those poor preachers, nor one of those poor herbalists who carry boxes and sachets and spread them out on a carpet. No, I am a disciple of a great lady named Madame Trotte of Salerno, who performs such marvels of every kind. And know ye that she is the wisest woman in the four quarters of the world."

Ordericus Vitalis, an English Benedictine monk, in his _Historia Ecclesiastica_, tells us of the impression made by Trotula on Rudolfo Malacorona, one of those famous itinerant scholars of the Middle Ages, who spent their lives in wandering from one university to another in pursuit of knowledge. He had been a student from his youth and was a man of remarkable attainments in every department of learning. After visiting and conferring with the learned men of the most celebrated universities of France and Italy, he finally arrived at Salerno, where, he informs us, he found no one who could cope with him in disputation except _quandam sapientem matronam_--a certain very learned woman.[198]

This was Trotula, who, by reason of the extraordinary cures she effected, was known among her contemporaries as _magistra operis_--a consummate pract.i.tioner. When, however, we consider the thorough course of study that every one aspiring to a degree in medicine was obliged to complete, women as well as men, it is not so surprising that Trotula should be regarded both as a learned woman and as a successful physician.

Among other women doctors who did honor to Salerno and whose names have come down to us were three who are known in history as Abella, Rebeca de Guarna and Mercuriade. All of them achieved a great reputation by their writings on medical subjects, especially Mercuriade, who distinguished herself in surgery as well as in medicine. Still another woman deserving special mention is Francesca, wife of Matteo de Romana, of Salerno.

After pa.s.sing a very severe examination before a board composed of physicians and surgeons, she was accorded the doctorate in surgery. An official doc.u.ment of the time referring to this event reads as follows: "Whereas the laws permit women to practice medicine, and whereas, from the viewpoint of good morals, women are best adapted to the treatment of their own s.e.x, we, after having received the oath of fidelity, permit the said Francesca to practice the said art of healing," etc.[199]

In view of the facts above mentioned regarding the University of Salerno--the excellence of its work, its liberality and breadth of view, its att.i.tude toward the higher education of women, and its preeminence for so many centuries as a school of medicine--is it surprising that it was, until comparatively recent times, considered "the _mater et caput_ of medical authority in ethical matters," and that, so late as 1748, the Medical Faculty of Paris should address an official letter to the faculty of Salerno requesting its judgment regarding the rights of precedence as between physicians and surgeons? But what is surprising, and what, too, pa.s.ses all understanding, is that the University of London, after being empowered by royal charter to do all things that could be done by any university, was legally advised that it could not grant degrees to women without a fresh charter, because no university had ever granted such degrees.[200]

While women were winning such laurels in Salerno in every department of the healing art, their sisters north of the Alps were not idle. As early as 1292 there were in Paris no less than eight women doctors--called _miresses_ or _mediciennes_--whose names have come down to us, not to speak of those who practiced in other parts of France. There was also a certain number of women who devoted themselves to surgery and called by the old Latin authors of the time _cyrurgiae_.

In Paris, however, conditions for studying and practicing medicine and surgery were far from being as favorable to women as they were in Salerno. As there were no schools open to them for the study of these branches, they had to depend entirely for such knowledge as they were able to acquire on the aid they could get from practicing doctors, the reading of medical books and their own experience. The consequence was that they were not at all so well equipped for their work as were the women who enjoyed all the exceptional advantages offered the students at Salerno. None of them was noted for scholarship, none of them was a writer of books, and only one of them--Jacobe Felicie, about whom more presently--rose above mediocrity.

The reason for the great difference between the conditions of the women doctors of Paris and those of Salerno is not far to seek. The Faculty of Medicine in Paris was, from the beginning of its existence, unalterably opposed to female medical pract.i.tioners. As early as 1220 it promulgated an edict prohibiting the practice of medicine by any one who did not belong to the faculty, and, according to its const.i.tutions and by-laws, only unmarried men were eligible to membership.

For a long time the edict remained a dead letter. But eventually, as the faculty grew in power and influence, it was able to enforce the observance of its decrees. One of its first victims was Jacobe Felicie, just mentioned, who was hailed before court for practicing medicine in contravention of its edict issued many years before.

Jacobe Felicie was a woman of n.o.ble birth, and had won distinction by her success in the healing art. As the testimony at her trial revealed, she never treated the sick for the sake of gain. In nearly all cases the sick who had addressed themselves to her had been abandoned by their own physicians. All the witnesses who had been called testified that they had been cured by Jacobe Felicie, and all expressed their deepest grat.i.tude to her for her care and devotion. But, in spite of all these facts, and in spite of the brilliant defence that this worthy woman made, she was condemned to pay a heavy fine--condemned because, as the indictment read, she had presumed to put her sickle into the harvest of others-_falcem in messem mittere alienam_--and this was a crime.[201]

The faculty was a close corporation and insisted that its members should have a monopoly of all the honors and emoluments that were to accrue from the treatment of the sick and suffering. What a curious adumbration of similar proceedings within the memory of many still living!

The prosecution of Jacobe Felicie recalls that of Agnodice in Greece long ages before. And the plea urged for the necessity of a female physician--that many a woman would rather die than reveal the secrets of her infirmity to a man[202]--was the same as that offered by the women of Athens before the council of the Areopagus. It was the same agonizing cry that had been heard thousands of times before and which has been heard thousands of times since. Isabella of Castile was not the first of the long list of victims who, for lack of a doctor of their own s.e.x, have been sacrificed through womanly modesty, and, more's the pity, she will not be the last.

Unfortunately for the women of France, the result of the prosecution of Mme. Felicie was the very reverse of that inst.i.tuted against Agnodice; for the latter came off victorious, while the former was condemned and punished. So crushing was the blow dealt to women pract.i.tioners, outside of obstetrics, that they did not recover from its effects for more than five hundred years. For it was not until 1868 that the ecole de Medicine of Paris opened its doors to women, and it was not until nearly twenty years later that female physicians were able to enter the hospitals of the French capital as _internes_.[203]

Until quite recent years there is very little to be said of women physicians in England and Germany. Their practice, outside of that of certain herb doctors, was confined chiefly to midwifery. There was no provision made in either of these countries for the education of women in medicine and surgery, and such a thing as a college where they could receive instruction in the healing art was unknown. It is true that an ecclesiastical law of Edgar, King of England, permitted women as well as men to practice medicine, but this law was subsequently abolished by Henry V.[204]

During the reign of Henry VIII a law was again enacted in favor of women physicians; for at that time an act was pa.s.sed for the relief and protection of "Divers honest psones, as well men as women, whom G.o.d hathe endued with the knowledge of the nature, kind and operacon of certeyne herbes, rotes and waters, and the using and ministering them to suche as be payned with customable diseases, for neighbourhode and G.o.ddes sake and of pitie and charitie, because _that_ 'The Companie and Fellowship of Surgeons of London, _mynding only their owne lucres and nothing the profit or case of the diseased or patient_, have sued, vexed and troubled' the aforesaid 'honest psones,' who were henceforth to be allowed 'to practyse, use and mynistre in and to any outwarde sore, swelling or disease, any herbes, oyntments, bathes, pultes or emplasters, according to their c.o.o.ning, experience and knowledge--without sute, vexation, penaltie or loss of their goods.'"[205]

The italicized words in this quotation prove that the women doctors of England had the same difficulties as their sisters in France, and that the real reason of the opposition of the male pract.i.tioners was that they wished to monopolize the practice of medicine. They, like the medical faculty of Paris, strenuously objected to women "putting the sickle into their harvest," and they, accordingly, left nothing undone to circ.u.mvent the intrusion of those whom they always regarded as undesirable compet.i.tors.

It was argued by the men that women, to begin with, lacked the strength and capacity necessary for medical practice. It was also urged that it was indelicate and unwomanly for the gentler s.e.x to engage in the healing art, and that, for their own good, they should be excluded from it at all costs. Those who were willing to waive these objections contended that women had not the knowledge necessary for the profession of medicine and should be excluded on the score of ignorance. When women sought to qualify themselves for medical practice by seeking instruction under licenced pract.i.tioners or in medical schools, they found a deaf ear turned to their requests. The doctors declined to teach them and the medical schools, one and all, closed their doors against them.

Thus it was that in England, France and Germany the practice of medicine and surgery was always practically in the hands of men until only a generation ago. Even the English midwives gradually "fell from their high estate," and were left far behind the female obstetricians of Germany and France. For these two countries can point to a number of midwives who, by their knowledge, successful practice, and the books they wrote, achieved a celebrity that still endures.

Chief among these in Germany were Regina Joseph von Siebold, her daughter Carlotta, and Frau Teresa Frei, all of whom, in the early part of the last century, enjoyed an enviable reputation in the Fatherland.

The first named, after following a course of lectures on physiology and the diseases of women and children, and pa.s.sing a brilliant examination in the medical college of Darmstadt, devoted herself to the practice of obstetrics, and with so great success that the University of Giessen in 1819 conferred on her the degree of doctor of obstetrics. Her daughter, Carlotta, after studying obstetrics under her mother, went to the University of Gottingen, where she devoted herself to physiology, anatomy and pathology. After pa.s.sing an examination and successfully defending a number of theses in the University of Giessen, she was also proclaimed a doctor of obstetrics. At a later date Frau Frei received a similar degree.[206]

More noted as _accoucheuses_ and gynecologists than the three distinguished women just mentioned were Mme. Marie Louise La Chapelle and Mme. Marie Bovin, who, shortly after the French Revolution, entered upon those wonderful careers in their chosen specialties which have given them so unique a place in the annals of medicine.

Mme. La Chapelle was particularly celebrated for the numerous improvements she effected in lying-in hospitals, for the large number of skilled midwives whom she furnished, not only to France, but also to the whole of Europe, and, above all, for the excellent treatises which she wrote on obstetrics, which gave her a reputation second to none among her contemporaries, men or women. Her _Pratique des Accouchements_, in three volumes, based on the immense number of fifty thousand cases at which she presided, reveals an operator of rarest skill and genius. This production was long regarded as a standard work on the topics discussed, and for years exerted an immense influence in the medical world.

Less skillful as an operator, but of greater ability as a doctor than Mme. La Chapelle, was her ill.u.s.trious contemporary, Mme. Bovin.

Possessing extraordinary insight as an investigator and marvelous sagacity as a diagnostician, Mme. Bovin achieved the distinction of being the first really great woman doctor of modern times. Her marvelous success as a pract.i.tioner--Dupuytren said she had an eye at the tip of her finger--her extended knowledge of the entire range of gynecology, but above all her numerous treatises on the subject matter of her life work, gave her a prestige that none of her s.e.x had ever before enjoyed, and commanded the admiration of the doctors of the world. Her _Memorial de l'Art des Accouchements_ pa.s.sed through many editions and was translated into several European languages. And so highly were her scientific attainments valued in Germany that the University of Marburg recognized them by conferring on her--_honoris causa_--the degree of doctor of medicine and, had its rules permitted the admission of women, the Royal Academy of Medicine would have honored her with a place among its members. She was also the recipient of many other honors, besides being a member of several learned societies. But the greatest monument to her genius is a large ill.u.s.trated treatise in two volumes, in which she exhibits a wonderful knowledge of anatomy, physiology, surgery, pathology and therapeutics. It gave her a large following in Germany as well as in France, and there were not wanting distinguished German _accoucheurs_ who followed Mme. Bovin's teachings to the letter.

The remarkable German and French women just named were all practically self-made women. They won fame as they had acquired knowledge--chiefly by courage, in spite of the countless obstacles that beset their paths.

They owed nothing to schools or universities, nothing to government patronage or a.s.sistance, nothing to the medical fraternity as a whole.

Universities would not admit them to their lecture rooms or laboratories, and the various medical faculties opposed them as intruders into their jealously guarded domain, and as compet.i.tors whose aspirations were to be frustrated, whatever the means employed. It is true that, when some of the women mentioned had won world-wide renown by their achievements, they were made the recipients of belated honors by certain universities and learned societies; but these societies and universities were then honoring themselves as much as the women who received their degrees and diplomas of membership.

How different it was in Italy, which, since the fall of the Roman Empire, has ever been in the van of civilization, and which has always continued the best traditions of Graeco-Roman learning and culture--Italy, which has been the home of such supreme masters of literature, science, art as Dante, Petrarch, Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michaelangelo, Brunelleschi--Italy, the mother of universities, the birthplace of the Renaissance, and the recognized leader of intellectual progress among the nations of the world. Here in the favored land of the Muses and the Graces, women enjoyed all the rights and privileges accorded to men; here the doors of schools and universities were open to all regardless of s.e.x; and art, science, literature, law, medicine, jurisprudence counted its votaries among women as well as among men; here, far from encountering jealousy and opposition in the pursuit of knowledge or in the practice of the professions, women never found aught but generous emulation and sympathetic cooperation.

For a thousand years women were welcomed into the arena of learning and culture on the same footing as men. In Salerno, Bologna, Padua, Pavia, they competed for the same honors and were contestants for the same prizes that stimulated the exertions of the sterner s.e.x. Position and emolument were the guerdons of merit and ability, and the victor, whether man or woman, was equally acclaimed and showered with equal honor. Women asked for no favors in the intellectual arena and expected none. All they desired were the same opportunities and the same privileges as were granted the men, and these were never denied them.

From the time when Trotula taught in Salerno to the present, when Giuseppina Catani is professor of general pathology in the medical faculty of Bologna, the women of Italy always had access to the universities and were at liberty to follow any course of study they might elect. We thus find them achieving distinction in civil and canon law, in medicine, in theology even, as well as in art, science, literature, philosophy and linguistics. No department of knowledge had any terrors for them, and there was none in which some of them did not win undying fame. They held chairs of language, jurisprudence, philosophy, physics, mathematics, medicine and anatomy, and filled these positions with such marked ability that they commanded the admiration and applause of all who heard them.

This is not the place to tell of the triumphs of the women professors in the Italian universities, or to recount the achievements of those who were honored with degrees within their cla.s.sic walls. Let it suffice to recall the names of a few of those who won renown in medicine and surgery and whose names are still in their own land p.r.o.nounced with respect and veneration.

One of the most noted pract.i.tioners in Southern Italy, after the death of Trotula and her compeers, was one Margarita, who had studied medicine in Salerno. One of her patients was no less a personage than Ladislaus, King of Naples. Among those that had diplomas for the practice of surgery were Maria Incarnata, of Naples, and Thomasia de Matteo, of Castro Isiae.

That women enjoyed in Rome the same privileges in the practice of medicine and surgery as their sisters in the southern part of the peninsula is manifest from an edict issued by Pope Sixtus IV in confirmation of a law promulgated by the Medical Faculty of Rome, which reads as follows: "No man or woman, whether Christian or Jew, unless he be a master or a licentiate in medicine, shall presume to treat the human body either as a physician or as a surgeon."[207]

In central and northern Italy--in Florence, Turin, Padua, Venice--as well as in the southern part, we find constantly recurring instances of women practicing medicine and surgery and winning for themselves an enviable reputation as successful pract.i.tioners.

But after the decline of Salerno, consequent on the establishment by Frederick II of a school of medicine in Naples, the great center of medicine and surgery, as of civil and canon law, was Bologna.[208] So renowned did it become as a teaching and intellectual center that it was, as Sarti informs us, known throughout Europe as _Civitas Docta_--the learned city--and _Mater Studiorum_--the mother of studies.

On its coins were stamped the words _Bononia Docet_--Bologna teaches--and on the city seal, which is still used for certain public doc.u.ments, were the words _Legum Bononia Mater_--Bologna, the Mother of Laws.

Here, more than in Salerno, more than in any other city in the world, was, for long centuries, witnessed a blooming of female genius that has, since the time of Gratian and Irnerius, given the University of Bologna preeminence in the estimation of all friends of woman's education and woman's culture. For here, within the walls of what was for centuries the most celebrated university in Christendom, women had, for the first time, an opportunity of devoting themselves at will to the study of any and all branches of knowledge. And it can be truthfully affirmed that no seat of learning can point to such a long list of eminent scholars and teachers among the gentler s.e.x as is to be found on the register of Bologna's famous university. For here, to name only a few, achieved distinction, either as students or as professors, such noted women as Bitisia Gozzadina, Bettina and Novella Calendrini, Dorotea Bocchi, Giovanna and Maddalena Bianchetti, Virginia Malvezzi, Maria Vittoria Dosi, Elisabetta Sirani, Ippolita Gra.s.si, Properzia de Rossi, Maria Mastellagri, Laura Ba.s.si, Maddelena Noe-Candedi, Clotilda Tambroni and Anna Manzolini. In this honor list we have a group of savantes that were famed throughout Europe for their attainments in law, philosophy, science, ancient and modern languages, medicine, and surgery--the rivals, and sometimes the superiors, in scholarship of the ablest men among their distinguished colleagues.

It would be a pleasure to recount the achievements of these justly celebrated daughters of Italy; but lack of s.p.a.ce precludes the mention of more than one of them. This was Maria dalle Donne, who was born of poor peasants near Bologna, and who at an early age exhibited intelligence of a superior order. After pursuing her studies under the ablest masters, she obtained from the University of Bologna, _maxima c.u.m laude_, the degree of doctor in philosophy and medicine. On account of her knowledge of surgery, as well as of medicine, she was soon afterward put in charge of the city's school for midwives. When Napoleon, in 1802, pa.s.sed through Bologna he was so struck by the exceptional ability of the young _dottoressa_ that, on the recommendation of the savant Caterzani, he had inst.i.tuted for her in the university a chair of obstetrics--a position which she held until the time of her death, in 1842, with the greatest credit to herself and to the inst.i.tution with which she was identified.

Maria dalle Donne is a worthy link between that long line of women doctors, beginning with Trotula, who have so honored their s.e.x in Italy, and those still more numerous pract.i.tioners in the healing art who, shortly after her death, began to spring up in all parts of the civilized world.[209]

For it was about this time that the movement which had long been agitated in behalf of the higher education of women began suddenly to a.s.sume extraordinary vitality, not only throughout Europe but in America as well. And to no women did this movement appeal so strongly as to those who had long been looking forward to an opportunity to qualify themselves for the learned professions, especially medicine. No sooner did they descry the first flush of dawn on their long-deferred hopes than they began to consider ways and means for putting their fondly nurtured projects into execution.

Seven years, almost to the day, after the death of Maria dalle Donne, Miss Elizabeth Blackwell, a young woman in America, of English birth, decided to enter college with a view of studying medicine and surgery.

But, at the very outset, she encountered all kinds of unforeseen difficulties--difficulties that would have caused a less courageous and determined woman to give up her plans in despair. She was told, in the first place, that it was highly improper for a woman to study medicine and that no decent woman would think of becoming a medical pract.i.tioner.

As to a lady studying or practicing surgery that, of course, was out of the question.

But a more serious obstacle than the conventionalities in the case was the difficulty of finding a medical college that was willing to admit a woman to its lecture rooms and laboratories. Miss Blackwell applied to more than a dozen of the leading inst.i.tutions of America, and received a positive refusal to her request. Finally, when hope had almost vanished, she received word from a small college in Geneva, New York, announcing that her application had been favorably considered and that she would be admitted as a student whenever she presented herself.

The truth is that the faculty of the college was opposed to the young woman's admission, but wished to escape the odium incident to a direct refusal by referring the question to the cla.s.s with a proviso which, it was believed, would necessarily exclude her. "But in this it was greatly surprised and disappointed. For the entire medical cla.s.s, to the number of about one hundred and fifty, decided unanimously in favor of the fair applicant's admission. And they did more than this. They put themselves on record regarding the equality of educational opportunities for women and men in a way that must have put their timid professors to shame.

Their resolution, accompanying an invitation to the young woman to become a member of the student body, was worded as follows:

"'Resolved, That one of the radical principles of a republican government is the universal education of both s.e.xes; that to every branch of scientific education the door should be equally open to all; that the application of Elizabeth Blackwell to become a member of our cla.s.s meets our entire approbation, and, in extending our unanimous invitation, we pledge ourselves that no conduct of ours shall cause her to regret her attendance at this inst.i.tution.'"

The students were as good as their word. Their conduct, as Miss Blackwell wrote years afterward, was always admirable and that of "true Christian gentlemen." But the women of Geneva were shocked at the female medical student. They stared at her as a curious animal; and the theory was fully established that she was "either a bad woman, whose designs would gradually become evident, or that, being insane, an outbreak of insanity would soon be apparent."[210]