Woman in Science — Women in Medicine and Surgery, Part 2

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 practitioners.

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 constitutions 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 noble 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 gratitude 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 sex, 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 instituted against Agnodice;

for the latter came off victorious, while the former was condemned and punished.

So crushing was the blow dealt to women practitioners, 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 passed for the relief and protection of "Divers honest psones, as well men as women, whom God 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 Goddes 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 cooning, 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 practitioners 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 circumvent the intrusion of those whom they always regarded as undesirable competitors.

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 sex 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 practitioners 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 passing 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 Goettingen, where she devoted herself to physiology, anatomy and pathology.

After passing 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 illustrious 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 practitioner--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 sex had ever before enjoyed, and commanded the admiration of the doctors of the world.

Her _Memorial de l'Art des Accouchements_ passed 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 illustrated 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 assistance, 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 competitors 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 sex; 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 sex.

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 classic 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 pronounced with respect and veneration.

One of the most noted practitioners 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 practitioners.

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 documents, 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 sex 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 Grassi, Properzia de Rossi, Maria Mastellagri, Laura Bassi, 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 space 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 cum 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, passed through Bologna he was so struck by the exceptional ability of the young _dottoressa_ that, on the recommendation of the savant Caterzani, he had instituted 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 institution 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 sex in Italy, and those still more numerous practitioners 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 assume 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 practitioner.

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 institutions 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 class with a proviso which, it was believed, would necessarily exclude her.

"But in this it was greatly surprised and disappointed.

For the entire medical class, 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 sexes; 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 class 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 institution.'

" 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] In due time Miss Blackwell finished her course in medicine and surgery, and graduated at the head of her class.

The orator of the day, who was a member of the faculty, naturally referred to the new departure that had been made--the admission of a woman for the first time to a complete medical education--and among other things declared that the experiment, of which every member of the faculty was proud, "had proved that the strongest intellect and nerve and the most untiring perseverance were compatible with the softest attributes of feminine delicacy and grace."

[211] The awarding of the degree of M. D.

for the first time to a woman in America excited general comment and widespread interest, not only in the United States, but in Europe as well.

The public press was not unfavorable in its opinion of the new departure, and even _Punch_ could not resist writing some verses, sympathetic, albeit humorous, in honor of the fair M. D.

[212] After spending some time abroad studying in the great hospitals of Europe, Miss Blackwell started the practice of medicine in New York City.

At first, as she declares in her autobiographical sketches, it was "very difficult, though steady, uphill work.

I had," she tells us, "no medical companionship, the profession stood aloof, and society was distrustful of the innovation."

The aloofness of the profession arose from a dread of successful rivalry, and the men did not wish to encourage "the invasion by women of their own preserves."

"You cannot expect us," one of them frankly admitted to her, "to furnish you with a stick to break our heads with."

But, undeterred by opposition, Miss Blackwell continued her work, daily making converts to the new movement and receiving substantial aid, as well as sympathetic cooperation, from many people, both men and women, prominent in society and public life.

In 1854 she started a free dispensary for poor women.

Three years later she founded a hospital for women and children, where young women physicians as well as patients could be received.

These were the humble beginnings of the present flourishing institutions known as the New York Infirmary and the College for Women.

And in less than ten years after her graduation, Miss Blackwell saw the new departure in medical practice successfully established, not only in New York, but also in other large cities of the United States.

In 1869 the early pioneer medical work by women in America was completed.

"During the twenty years which followed the graduation of the first woman physician, the public recognition of the justice and advantage of such a measure had steadily grown.

Throughout the northern states the free and equal entrance of women into the profession of medicine was secured.

In Boston, New York and Philadelphia special medical schools for women were sanctioned by the legislatures, and in some long-established colleges women were received as students in the ordinary classes."

[213] Meanwhile, the women in Europe were not idle nor heedless of the example set by their brave sisters in America.

The University of Zurich threw open its portals to women, and was soon followed by those of Bern and Geneva.

The first woman to obtain a degree in medicine in Zurich--it was in 1867--was Nadejda Suslowa, a Russian.

She was soon followed by scores of others from Europe and America, who found greater advantages and more sympathy in Swiss universities than elsewhere.

In 1869 the Medico-Chirurgical Academy of St. Petersburg conferred the degree of M. D.

upon Madame Kaschewarow, the first female candidate for this honor.

When her name was mentioned by the dean it was received with an immense storm of applause which lasted several minutes.

The ceremony of investing her with the insignia of her dignity being over, her fellow students and colleagues lifted her on a chair and carried her with triumphant shouts throughout the halls.

The first woman graduate from the University of France was Miss Elizabeth Garrett, of England.

She received her degree in medicine in 1870, and the following year the same institution conferred the doctor's degree on Miss Mary C. Putnam, of New York.

After these precedents had been established, the universities of the various countries on the continent, following the examples set by those in the United States and Switzerland, opened one after the other their doors to women, and in most of them accorded them all the privileges of _cives academici_ enjoyed by the men.

Great Britain held out against the new movement long after most of the continental countries had fallen into line, nor did she surrender until after a protracted and bitter fight, during which the men leading the opposition exhibited evidences of selfishness and obscurantism that now seem incredible.

The leader in Great Britain of pioneer medical work for women was Miss Sophia Jex-Blake, whose academic pathway was beset with difficulties far sterner than had in the United States confronted her friend and colleague, Miss Blackwell.

Hearing much of the tolerance and liberality of the University of London, she applied to it for admission as a student, but was informed at once that the charter of the institution "had purposely been so worded as to exclude the possibility of examining women for medical degrees."

After this rebuff she made application to the University of Edinburgh, which, like the other Scotch universities, had always boasted of its broad-mindedness and freedom from educational trammels.

She was received provisionally, and was, after a while, joined by six other women who had in view the same object as herself.

For a time, notwithstanding opposition from certain quarters, everything was quiet and apparently satisfactory.

But the gathering storm soon broke, and the seven young women, as they were one day entering the university gates, were actually mobbed by a ruffianly band of students who had all along been opposed to the presence of women in the class and lecture rooms.

They pelted the helpless females with street mud and hurled at them all the vile epithets and heaped upon them all the abuse that their foul tongues could command.

These outrageous proceedings on the part of the rabble of rowdies were allowed to continue for several days, and, had it not been for a brave band of chivalrous young Irishmen among the students, who formed themselves into a bodyguard for the protection of their fair classmates, and were, in consequence, known as "The Irish Brigade," the hapless women students would not have escaped bodily harm.

What a marked contrast between the conduct toward Miss Blackwell of the gallant students of the modest little American town and that of the cowardly ruffians of the vaunted "Athens of the North!"

But this was not all.

The seven young women in question had matriculated as students of the university with the understanding that they were to have all the rights and privileges of the male students.

But after the disgraceful conduct of the mob just referred to, they discovered that the authorities of the university were prepared to break faith with them, and prevent them from getting their coveted degrees, and thus debar them from all chance of medical practice.

The reason why the university was induced to annul its contract, after the women on their part had fully complied with all its stipulations, soon became apparent.

It was purely and simply to make it impossible for women to secure a license as medical practitioners.

Both in and outside of Edinburgh the conviction daily grew stronger that women doctors were a menace to the monopoly so long enjoyed by the medical fraternity, and that the movement in their favor should be crushed by fair means or foul before it got beyond control.

The _Spectator_ made this clear by stating at the time of the controversy that "every profession in this country"--England--"is more or less of a trades union," and yet the members of these professions "would shake their heads and prate about the necessity of stamping out trades unionism among workmen."

"Women," whined one of the doctors, "would snatch the bread from the mouths of poor practitioners."

Another doctor who had championed the cause of women physicians, when commenting on the hypocritical objection that it was unbecoming for women to practice medicine or surgery, expressed the same idea in other words.

"It appears," he declared, "that it is most becoming and proper for a woman to discharge all the duties which are incidental to our profession for thirty shillings a week; but, if she is to have three or four guineas a day for discharging the same duties, then they are immoral and immodest and unsuited to the soft nature that should characterize a lady."

After Miss Jex-Blake and her companions learned that the university was determined to refuse them the degrees to which they were entitled, they brought suit against it for breach of contract.

But, after a long and expensive trial, the judge rendered a decision against them.

They then appealed to Parliament, and, after a protracted and strenuous campaign on the part of friends whom they had enlisted in their cause, they saw their opponents not only dragged at the chariot wheels of progress but forced to help to turn them; for, in 1878, after nearly ten years of a persistent, continuous struggle such as had rarely been witnessed in woman's long battle for things of the mind--a struggle in which the intrepid, dauntless Miss Jex-Blake "made the greatest of all the contributions to the end attained"--the women of Great Britain had the supreme satisfaction of winning what was probably the most glorious victory which their sex had ever won.

[214] The war was over and henceforward they were free--as were their sisters in other parts of the world--as the women in Italy had been for a thousand years--to devote themselves at will to the study and practice of the healing art without let or hindrance.

What a wonderful change has taken place in the medical world almost within the space of a single generation!

The tiny grain of mustard that was sown by two lone women, the Misses Blackwell and Jex-Blake, in their chosen field of effort has grown and "waxed a great tree."

Women doctors are now found in all parts of the civilized world and are numbered by thousands.

And so great has been their professional success, so widespread is the desire to secure their services, especially in countries like America and England, where opposition was in the beginning especially bitter, that the proportion of women practitioners in medicine and surgery is now regarded as the best index of a nation's enlightenment.

The healing art of Greece and Rome has broadened out into the noble sciences of medicine and surgery of to-day.

For, based as they now are on the sciences of chemistry, botany, biology, hygiene, physiology, anatomy and bacteriology, which have all witnessed such extraordinary developments during the last half century, they both deserve a preeminent place in the history of the sciences.

And the success which has crowned woman's efforts in surgery and medicine is not only a conclusive indication of her capacity, so long denied by her self-interested opponents, but also the most convincing indication that she is at last properly occupied in a field of activity from which she was too long excluded.

Her contributions as writer and investigator toward the progress of both sciences, even during the short time in which she has been able to give proof of her ability, have been notable and augur well for the share she will have in their future advancement.

But more important still is the refining influence she has already exerted on both professions, and the relief she has been able to afford to countless thousands of her own sex who would otherwise have been the voluntary victims of untold misery.

Women doctors are, indeed, not only worthy representatives of Aesculapia Victrix and of the two sciences which they have so elevated and so ennobled, but are also ministering angels to poor, suffering humanity comparable only with the heroic Sisters of Charity and the devoted nurses of the Red Cross.

FOOTNOTES:

[182] Quoted in _Medical Women_, p. 11, by Sophia Jex-Blake, M. D.

, Edinburgh, 1886. Cf.

Hyginus, _Fabularum Liber_, No. 274. [183] Charles Daremberg, who, at the time of his death in 1872, was professor of the history of medicine in the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, had the intention of publishing this work [Greek: Peri ton gynaichaion tazon].

--On the Diseases of Women--but his premature death prevented him from executing his project.

It is to be hoped that some one else, interested in woman's medical work, may at an early date give this production to the public with an appropriate commentary.

[184] Cf.

Hertzen et Rossi _Inscriptiones Urbis Romae Latinae_, p. 1245, No. 9478, Berlin, 1882. [185] "Non mihi si linguae centum, oraque centum, ferrea vox ...

omnia morborum percurrere nomina possim quae Fabiola in tanta miserorum refregeria commutavit ut multi pauperum sani languentibus inviderent."

_Epistola ad Oceanum.

_ [186] Haec inter timidam revocat clamore puellam Alpharides, veniens quae saucia quaeque ligavit.

--Ekkehardi Primi _Waltharius_, Berlin, 1873. [187] That the Germans, at the time under discussion, regarded learning as having an effeminating effect on men is well illustrated by the following characteristic anecdote: "when Amasvintha, a very learned woman who was a daughter of the Ostrogoth King, Theodoric, selected three masters for the instruction of her son, the people became indignant.

'Theodoric,' they exclaimed, 'never sent the children of the Goths to school, learning making a woman of a man and rendering him timorous.

The saber and the lance are sufficient for him.'

" Procopius, _De Bello Gothico_, I, 2, Leipsic, 1905. If we may judge by a letter from Pace to Dean Colet, the noted classical scholar and founder of St. Paul's school in London, such views found acceptance in England as late as the time of More and Erasmus.

For we are told of a British parent who expressed his opinion on the education of men in these words: "I swear by God's body I'd rather that my son should hang than study letters.

The study of letters should be left to rustics."

[188] This work was for a long time regarded as lost, but a manuscript copy was recently found in Copenhagen, and it has since been published by Teubner of Leipsic, under the title of _Hildegard's Causae et Curae_.

[189] _Archiv fuer Pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie und fuer Klinische Medicin_, Band 18, p. 286, Berlin.

[190] _S.

Hildegardis Opera Omnia_, Ed.

Migne, p. 1122, Paris, 1882. [191] "In the municipal and state institutions of this period the beautiful gardens, roomy halls and springs of water of the old cloistral hospital of the Middle Ages were not heard of, still less the comforts of their friendly interiors."

_A History of Nursing_, Vol. I, p. 500, M.

Adelaide Nutting and Lavinia L. Dock, New York, 1907. The mortality in some of the state hospitals from the latter part of the seventeenth to the middle of the nineteenth century was appalling, often as high as fifty and sixty per cent.

This was due not only to shockingly unsanitary conditions, but also to inordinate overcrowding.

A large proportion of the beds, incredible as it may seem, were purposely made for four patients, and six were frequently crowded into them.

"The extraordinary spectacle was then to be seen of two or three small-pox cases, or several surgical cases, lying on one bed."

John Howard, in his _Prisons and Hospitals_, pp. 176-177. Warrington, 1874, tells us of two hospitals that were so crowded that he had "often seen five or six patients in one bed, and some of them dying."

It is gratifying to learn that the chief agents in changing this revolting condition, due to faulty construction and management of hospitals, were women.

Prominent among these benefactors of humanity were Mme.

Necker, Florence Nightingale, and the wise and alert superiors of the various nursing sisterhoods.

[192] How like Chaucer's prioress who "Was so charitable and so piteous, And al was conscience and tender herte."

[193] Cf.

_Lib.

de Virtutibus et Laudibus_, by Aegidius, head physician to Philip Augustus of France, in which occur the following verses: Urbs Phoebo sacrata, Minervae sedula nutrix, Fons physicae, pugil eucrasiae, cultrix medicinae, Assecla Naturae, vitae paranympha, salutis Promula fida; magis Lachesis soror, Atropos hostis.

Morbi pernicies, gravis adversaria mortis.

quoted in the appendix, p. xxxii, to S. de Renzi's, _Storia Documentata della Scuola Medica di Salerno_, Naples, 1857. [194] Cf.

The introduction to the English translation of the _Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum_, p. 28, by J. Ordronaux, Philadelphia, 1870. [195] "Immortal praise adorns Salerno's name To seek whose shrine the world once came."

[196] See _Storia Documentata della Scuola Medica di Salerno_, ut.

sup.

, p. 474 et seq.

, and p. lxxvi et seq.

of Appendix; also Ordronaux, ut sup.

, p. 16. [197] Probably her most noted work is the one which bears the title _De Morbis Mulierum et Eorum Cura_--The Diseases of Women and Their Cure.

[198] "Physicae quoque scientiam tam copiose habuit ut in urbe Psaleritana, ubi maxime medicorum scholae ab antiquo tempore habentur, neminem in medicinali arte, praeter quandam sapientem matronam, sibi parem inveniret."

Migne, Patrologiae Latinae, Tom.

188, Col. 260. [199] As this decree is of singular interest and importance, a copy of the original is here given in full: "Karolus, etc. , Universis per Justitieratum Principatus citra Serras Montorii constitutis presentes litteras inspecturis fidelibus paternis et suis salutem, etc. In actionibus nostris utilitati puplice libenter oportune perspicimus et honestatem morum in quantum suadet modestia conservamus.

Sane Francisca uxor Mathei de Romana de Salerno in Regia Curia presens exposuit quod ipsa circa principale exercitium cirurgie sufficiens circumspecto in talibus judicio reputatur.

Propter quod excellentie nostre supplicavit attentius ut licentiam sibi dignaremus concedere in arte hujusmodi practicandi.

Quia igitur per scriptum puplicum universitatis terre Salerni presentatum eidem Regie Curie, inventum est lucide quod Francisca prefata fidelis est et genere orta fidelium ac examinata per medicos Regios paternos nostrosque cirurgicos, in eadem arte cirurgie tamquam ydiota sufficiens est inventa, licet alienum sit feminis conventibus interrese virorum, ne in matronalis pudoris contumelia irruant et primum culpam vetite transgressionis incurrant.

Quia tamen de juris indicto medicine officium mulieribus est concessum expedienter attento quod ad mulieres curandas egrotas de honestate morum viris sunt femine aptiores, not recepto prius ab eadem Francisca solito fidelitatis et quod iuxta tradiciones ipsius artis curabit fideliter corporaliter Juramento, licentiam curandi et practicandi sibi in eadem arte per Justitieratum jam dictum auctoritate presentium impartimus.

Quare fidelitati vestre precipimus quatenus eandem Franciscam curare et practicari in prefata arte per Justitieratum predictum ad honorem et fidelitatem paternam et nostram ac utilitatem fidelium presentium earumdam libere permittatis, nullum sibi in hoc impedimentum vel obstaculum interentes.

Datum Neapoli per dominum Bartholomeum de Capua, etc. , Anno domini mcccxxi, die x Septembris v, indictionis Regnorum dicti domini patris nostri anno xiii."

_Collectio Salernitana_, Tom.

III, p. 338, by G. Henschel, C. Daremberg, and S. de Renzi, Naples, 1852-59. [200] _Universities in the Middle Ages_, Vol. II, Part II, p. 712, by H. Rashdall, Oxford, 1895. The most exhaustive work on the University of Salerno and its famous doctors, men and women, is a joint work in five volumes entitled _Collectio Salernitana; ossia Documenti Inediti e Trattati di Medicina appartenenti alla scuola Salernitana, raccolti e illustrati_, by G. Henschel, C. Daremberg e S. Renzi, Naples, 1852-59. Cf.

also, _Storia Documentata della Scuola Medica di Salerno_, by S. de Renzi, Naples, 1857; _L'Ecole de Salerne_, by C. Meaux, with introduction by C. Daremberg, Paris, 1880, and Piero Giacosa's _Magistri Salernitani Nondum Editi_, Turin, 1891. [201] _Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis_, Tom.

II, p. 150, and pp. 255 and 267, by Denifle and Chatelain, Paris, 1889-1891. [202] "Mulier antea permitteret se mori, quam secreta infirmitatis sui homini revelare propter honestatem sexus muliebris et propter verecundiam quam revelando pateretur."

_Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis_, Tom.

II, p. 264, Paris, 1891. [203] It may interest the reader to know that the first two women to get the doctorate in the Paris School of Medicine were Miss Elizabeth Garret, an English woman, and Miss Mary Putnam, an American.

The first woman permitted to practice in the Paris hospitals was likewise an American, Miss Augusta Klumpke, of San Francisco.

[204] "Possunt et vir et foemina medici esse."

Cf.

Chiappelli, _Medicina negli Ultimi Tre Secoli del Medio Evo_, Milan, 1885. [205] Quoted in _Woman's Work and Woman's Culture_, p. 87, Josephine E. Butler, London, 1869. Dom Gasquet in his _English Monastic Life_, p. 175, tells us that in the Wiltshire convents "the young maids learned needlework, the art of confectionery, surgery--for anciently there were no apothecaries or surgeons; the gentlewomen did cure their poor neighbors--physic, drawing, etc." [206] The first woman to receive the doctorate of medicine in Germany was Frau Dorothea Christin Erxleben.

Hers, however, was a wholly exceptional case, and required the intervention of no less a personage than Frederick the Great.

In 1754, Frau Erxleben, who had made a thorough course of humanities under her father, presented herself before the faculty of the University of Halle, where she passed an oral examination in Latin which lasted two hours.

So impressed were the examiners by her knowledge and eloquence that they did not hesitate to adjudge her worthy of the coveted degree, which was accorded her by virtue of a royal edict.

Her reception of the doctorate was made the occasion of a most enthusiastic demonstration in her honor.

Felicitations poured in upon her from all quarters in both prose and verse.

One of them, in lapidary style, runs as follows: "Stupete nova litteraria, In Italia nonnumquam, In Germania nunquam Visa vel audita At quo rarius eo carius."

This, freely translated, adverts to the fact that an event, which before had been witnessed only in Italy, was then being celebrated in Germany for the first time, and was, for that very reason, specially deserving of commemoration.

[207] "Nemo masculus aut foemina, seu Christianus vel Judaeus, nisi Magister vel Licentiatus in Medicina foret, auderet humano corpori mederi in physica vel in chyrurgia."

Marini, _Archiatri Pontifici_, Tom.

I, p. 199, Roma, 1784. [208] Thomas Aquinas, the Angel of the Schools, who had taught in Salerno, and was well acquainted with the leading universities of Europe, was wont to say "Quattuor sunt urbes caeteris praeeminentes, Parisius in Scientiis, Salernum in Medicinis, Bononia in legibus, Aurelianis in actoribus--" there are four preeminent cities: Paris, in the sciences; Salerno, in medicine; Bologna, in law; Orleans, in actors.

Op.

17. _De Virtutibus et Vitiis_, Cap.

ult.

The mediaeval poet, Galfrido, expressed the same idea in verse when he wrote: "In morbis sanat medici virtute Salernum Aegros: in causis Bononia legibus armat Nudos: Parisius dispensat in artibus illos Panes, unde cibat robustos: Aurelianis Educat in cunis actorum lacte tenellos."

[209] It may be remarked that it was a woman, Lady Mary Montagu, who introduced inoculation with small-pox virus into Western Europe, and that it was also a woman--a simple English milkmaid--who communicated to Jenner the information which led to his discovery of a prophylactic against small-pox.

But of far greater importance was the introduction into Europe of that priceless febrifuge and antiperiodic--chinchona bark.

This was due to the Countess of Chinchon, vicereine of Peru.

Having been cured by its virtues of an aggravated case of tertian fever in 1638, while living in Lima, she lost no time, on her return to Spain, in making known to the world the marvelous curative properties of the precious quinine-producing bark.

The powder made from the bark was most appropriately called _Pulvis Comitessae_--the countess's powder--and by this name it was long known to druggists and in commerce.

Thanks to Linnaeus, the memory of the gracious lady will always be kept green, because her name is now borne by nearly eight score species of the beautiful trees which constitute the great and incomparable genus Chinchona.

See _A Memoir of the Lady Ana de Osorio, Countess of Chinchon, and Vice-Queen of Peru_, by Clements R. Markham, London, 1874. [210] _Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women_, p. 70, by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, London, 1895. [211] Ibid.

, p. 91. [212] "Young ladies all, of every clime, Especially of Britain Who wholly occupy your time In novels or in knitting, Whose highest skill is but to play, Sing, dance or French to clack well, Reflect on the example, pray, Of excellent Miss Blackwell.

...

*...

*...

*...

* "For Doctrix Blackwell, that's the way To dub in rightful gender-- In her profession, ever may Prosperity attend her.

Punch a gold-headed parasol Suggests for presentation To one so well deserving all Esteem and Admiration."

[213] Op.

cit.

, p. 241. [214] For an interesting account of the long campaign for the admission of women to medical schools and practice, see _Medical Women--A Thesis and a History_, by Dr. Sophia Jex-Blake, Edinburgh, 1886. For a more elaborate work on women in medicine, the reader may consult with profit, _Histoire des Femmes Medecins_, by Mlle.

Melanie Lepinska, Paris, 1900. CHAPTER IX