Women Scientists and Physicians of Antiquity and the Middle Ages Caroline L. Herzenberg Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439 Susan V. Meschel University of Chicago. Chicago, IL 60637 James A. Altena University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637
Onlv recently have chanees in social and cultural stand a r d ~ - ~ e r m i t t emodern d women substantial opportunities for scientific research and teaching. Even more recent is the growing awareness and appreciation of the significant contributions women of past centuries have made to science. Trackine down and evaluatine these women and their contributions remains difficult, particularly for women scientists of ancient and medieval times whose work did not enjoy immortalization by the printing press. Our knowledge often rests solelv uoon brief remarks bv later commentators. This knowledge has, in some cases, been further obscured by subsequent writers, who have ignored or downplayed women'scontributions, even misat&huting their wdrk tomen? Nevertheless, records of women in the sciences and medicine stretching hack over 4,000 years survive ( 1 4 ) . A number of these women enjoyed great prominence in their own and later times; a few were, by contemporary standards, of world-class caliber. The study of their lives and accomplishments adds a broader and more balanced dimension to our historical understanding of both science and of the social status of women. Ancient science had its roots far back in prehistory, and there is much indirect evidence that women were practitioners of the fields of activity that were the precursors of science (5, 6). One important cultural side effect would be the perception of woken as having privileged access t o arcane knowledge of both the natural and the supernatural. Folk cultures preserved images of "wise women2'asdiviners and healers utilizing "natural magic". Goddesses and not eods-Isis in E -e-w * t .. Athenaminerva in GreecelRomewere typically the ancient deities of wisdom. The first woman known bv name in the histow of science seems to be Merit Ptah, an kgyptian physician who lived c. 2700 B.C. (6, 7) Her oortrait ia in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings; her son, a high priest, described her as "the chief physician". Medicine was an established discipline in Egypt prior to 3000 B.C., and educated women worked as both doctors and surgeons. Women surgeons excised cancers, set hones with splints, and performed Caesarean sections. Women physicians, not surprisingly, frequently specialized in gynecology: the Kahun mediral papyrus of c. 2500 R.C. indicates that they diagnosed pregnancy, tested for sterility, and treated dvsmenorrhea. The medical schools of Sais and Heliopolis attracted women students and teachers from throuehout the ancient world. An inscriotion at the temole "I have come from the khool of medicine of ~ a r reads: s
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I TWO instances of this are me writings of Trotula of Salerno and Hildeoard of Binaen. both discussed below. A more picturesque examke of the Russian ~hvsiolosistIvan - ~.r - is - the f&ous ohotooraDh " . Pavlov and his research group. The commonly reprdduced version of th s photo is trimmed: the full version shows two women who also formed pari of the group-a case in history of women literal y oeing cut out of me picture! ~
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a t Heliopolis, and have studied a t the women's school at Sais, where the divine mothers have taught me how to cure disease" (I, 6). There is some evidence that the prophet Moses mav have studied medicine with his wife Zionorah a t ~eliopolis",and Zipporah reputedly attended Sais a'swell(1). The physician-queen Hatshepsut of the XVIIIth Dynasty not only practiced medicine but also dispatched a botanical expedition to search for new medicinal nlants (1.6). .. . ~ e s o ~ o t a mwas i a a significant cente; in antiquity for astronomy, metallurgy, and chemical terhnology. Among the survivingruneiform tahletsof Habylon isa record of the first woman known by name in the physical sciences, TapputiBelatikallim (5,8). Tapputi worked in the chemical technology of perfume production c. 1200 B.C.; the latter part of her name indicates she was the chief chemist or chemical engineer. The record also states that she had worked out the steps for preparing the perfumes hy her own methods. A second woman chemist in the perfume industry, credited with authorine a text on oerfume ~roduction.is also mentioned in the tablets. With the rise of classical Greek civilization about 600B.C.. surviving records of the names, writings, and activities of women scientists increase dramatically. In one important early Greek school of philosophy, that bf ~ythagorasof Samos, women were prominent in substantial numbers as both students and teachers. The Pythagoreans believed that numbers signified the fundamental constituents of the universe. with different numbers reoresentine distinct nhvsical. metaphysical, and mystical o r the soui&d thd cosmos. This oreoccuoation with numbers and concern with numerical refationships led them to extensive research in such fields as eeometrv, astronomv. acoustics. music. and g best known 'discoveries are the somedicine. ~ m o i thei; called Pythagorean theorem and the mathematical relationships hetween various harmonic intervals. There were at least 30 well-known women scholars among the Pythagoreans, the most renowned being Pythagoras's wife Theano, who appears t o have been an able mathematician as well as a physician ( 9 , I O ) . Because the Pythagoreans lived in a communal manner and propagated all their writings under Pythagoras's name, i t is impossible today t o credit specific discoveries to particular individuals, and only fragments of their works quoted by later authorities survive. Except in Sparta, where women were encouraged to take more active social roles in order to hear more healthv sons to be soldiers, women in Greece were severely restricted by law and custom to domestic duties. Athens appears to have had a law forbidding women to study or practice medicine under penalty of death. This law was overturned by the daring of Agnodike, a woman who disguised herself as a man, studied medicine, and achieved an enviable reDutation for treating women's diseases before revealine- her true identitv (11). . -, Because these restrictions did not apply to foreigners (i.e., non-Athenians), women from elsewhere in the Greek-speaking Mediterranean world came to Athens to take advantage
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flasks large and strong so that they will not hreak with the heat of its illustrious educational traditions; legally barred from coming from the water in the middle. Here is the figure." marrvine Athenians. some became courtesans or mistresses of influhtial ~ t h e n i a nleaders, forming the unique social The clarity of Miriam's description, including quantitative class of hetaerae ("comoanious to men"). The best known of measurements, distinguishes i t from the obscurity and imthese, Aspasia o f ' ~ i l e t & presided over a philosophical sarecision tvnical of most alchemists. Her references to "a lon that included Socrates and Anaxaaoras (11).Plato, who pastry cooks frying pan" and the use of flourpaste suggest like his mentor Socrates advocated the education of women the orieinal connections alchemical o~erationsprohablv had provided them with opportunities to study a t his Acadeto domestic kitchen procedures. H& peference f ~ r - ~ l a s s my-though native ~ t h e n i a nwomen who did so had to circollection vessels to allow the experimenter to observe the cumvent laws forbidding women to participate in public reaction without interference (":or they see without touassemhlien hy dressing as men! By contrast] ~ l a t o ' s ~ ~ u ~ i l ching"), plus her recognition elsewhere that such reactions Aristotle considered women to be inherently inferior, and produce poisonous fumes and her recommendations for natural philosophy and other philosophical subjects to be avoiding their noxious effects, were all quite advanced for properly the study of men, even though his wife Pythias was that time. ~-~~~~ a zooloaist and embwoloaist who collaborated with him in Miriam also evinced considerable skill as an experimental biological research (6)! ~ k o other n ~ women in Greek scichemist. Her most famous contrihution here was the mepaence, Arete of Cyrene and Artemisia of Caria should he ration of lead-copper sulfide, still called "Mary's lack" A d mentioned. Arete, whose father Aristippos was a pupil of used hv artists as a pigment. As an alchemist, she was ureocSocrates, is credited with an exceptional knowledge of natucupied with effortat; transmute base metals into goid and ral and moral philosophy, a teaching career of 35years that introduced several simplificatious into the accepted proceproduced 110 philosophers from among her pupils, and audures (15,16). She enpkrimented with several a h y s of copthorshinof some 40 books. none of which survive (12). Queen per, lead, silver, and gold and described the preparation and ~ r t e m i k a best , known fo; one of the Seven ~ o d d e i of s the properties of several sulfides. Notable among these is the Ancient World, the Mausoleum a t Halicarnassus, was a reaction hetween mercury and sulfur producing mercury(I1) skilled physician, botanist, and herbalist (6). sulfide, whose orange-red color had important symbolic sigWith the decline of classical Hellenic civilization during nificance in the gold-making process (17). the fourth century B.C. and the subsequent rise of the RoMiriam's writines reflect attitudes t v ~ i c a lof ancient alman Empire, t h e ~ ~ e l o ~ o n n e ceased s u s to be the center of chemists and characteristics peculiar to her Jewish heritage learning in the ancient world, and the pre-eminent position (18). The quest for the "philosopher's stone", the key for once held by Athens was assumed by Alexandria in Egypt, working all transmutations, involved lengthy and frequently an honor the latter city would enjoy for several centuries. In fruitless series of reactions and distillations. Her writings i t would live and work the two most accomplished and famcontain repeated exhortations for persistence and hopefulous women scientists of the ancient world, Miriam the Jewness, such as: "Do not he discouraged because of your inexess and Hvoatia. perience; for when you see that the metal has turned into ~ i r i a mh; s o called Maria or Mary, was an alchemist who cinder, understand that everything is going well" (14). A apparently lived during the first century A.D., though the student of the alchemist Ostanes and founder of her own exact dates are uncertain. Equally little is known of her as a school of alchemy, she was thoroughly steeped in the tradiperson. For over 1,500 years she would be revered as one of tion of secrecy, which held that the spiritual mysteries centhe greatest authorities in her field. Miriam is the first womtral to alchemical endeavors could he entrusted to and unan scientist whose writings survive in any form. While her derstood hv onlv a small circle of enliahtened initiates and original works are lost, significant extracts from them were was not to he exposed to the misunders&nding and mockery preserved by Zosimos of Panopolis, a third century A.D. of the vulgar and ignorant: Eevntian alchemist who com~ileda 28-volume encvclo~edia . . This is a mvsterious. wondrous thine. which is not annreciated of scientific knowledge. These quotations provide a distinct .. and is trampled on by the people [mob]. However, this lack of oirture of Miriam's ideasand merhods and her contributions appreciation is an advantage from Heaven, since the stupid peol o the science of her time (13). ple ignore it and forget it. Miriam's fame rested above all upon her skill in desianina chemical and alchemical equipment. The most notabre de; The following statements, echoing expressions used by Helsians attributed to Miriam were the water bath, the tribikos lenistic Jews, reflect Miriam's Jewish background: o;three-armed still, and the reflux oven. The 14th century Thou shalt not touch the Stoneof the Sages, for thou art not ofthe alchemist Arnauld of Villanova christened the water bath seed of Abraham. balneum mariae in her honor; even today the French name That is why Demokritos has said: "If you want to find the eompofor the double boiler is bain-marie. The tribikos was used for sition, you will he able to tint all bodies with Gad's aid." fractional distillation of complex mixtures. Zosimos recordThe connection in Miriam's ideas among Judaism, aled Miriam's design for i t as follows (14): chemical mysticism, and secrecy was not fortuitous. The A great number of constructions of apparatus have been deBook of Enoch. a n influential work from the Jewish A~ocrvscribed by Maria: not only those kind which concern the divine &a d&ing from about 200 B.C., relates that fallen angek waters, hut also many kinds of kerotakis and furnaces.. .I will revealed secret knowledge to mortal women (19). Among describe the tribikos to you. For so is called the apparatusmade of these were several artsclosely related to alchemical pursuits: copper and set out by Maria, the Transmitter of the Art. She says manufacture of medicines, cosmetics, ink, jewelry, and simuas follows: "Make three tuhes of ductile copper a little thicker lated gemstones. Ancient Judaism considered many of these than that of a pastry cook's frying pan. Their lengths should be a cubit anda half. Make three such tuhes and also make a tube of a ~ r o d u c t ssinful: cosmetics, for example, were abhorred for hand's breadth width and an opening proportional to that of the their association with pagan worship and idolatry. Enoch stillhead. The tubes should have their openings adapted like a associates metallurgy with idol-making and condemns writnail to the neck of a light receiver, so that they have the thumbing with ink or purifying silver. Zosimos, who quoted from tube and two finger-tubesjoined laterally on either hand. Inwards Enoch, concluded that (20) to the bottom of the stillhead are three holes adiusted to the It was possible only for Jews secretly to operate, write, and puhtubes; and when these are fitted, they are soldered in place-the lish these things. Indeed we find that Theophilos son of Theoone above receiving the vapor in a different fashion. Then, setting the stillhead on the earthenware pan containing the sulfur, and genes has described all the country's goldmines, and we have luting the joints with flourpaste, place at the tube-ends glass Maria's treatise of furnaces as well as other writings of Jews. ~~
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Hypatia of Alexandria (c. 370-415 A.D.) is the best known woman scientist of antiquity and the first woman scientist whose life and career are known in some detail (1, 10). Edward Gibbon treated her in his history of the Roman Empire, and the Victorian novelist and Anglican priest Charles Kingsley even wrote a romantic novel of her life. She received a thorough education from her father Theon, a noted astronomer and mathematician who is thought to have been director of the museum of Alexandria. After traveling and continuing her studies in Athens and Italy, she returned to Alexandria and assumed a chair in philosophy a t the neoPlatonic academy. Hypatia was a genuine polymath, her expertise embraced physics, mechanics, chemistry, and medicine. She attracted pupils from across the Mediterranean world, among them Synesius of Cyrene, later bishop of Ptolemais. Several letters of his to her survive, which include discussions and diagrams of a hydrometer and an astrolabe they had designed; she is credited with invention of several other instruments as well. Hypatia's major contrihutions, however, were to mathematics and astronomy. She wrote a commentary in 13 hooks on the Arithmetica of Diophantus (a third century A.D. mathematician who developed quadratic and indeterminate or Diophantine equations), and many of her alternative solutions and illustrative problems were incorporated into later versions of that text. Another commentary in eight books was devoted to the Conics of the third century B.C. geometer Apollonius. Hypatia is widely considered to be the author of the third book of Theon's commentary on Ptolemy's Almagest and to have contrihuted substantially to his revision of Euclid's Elements, the standard version of that text used in Europe throughout the Middle Ages. Ironically, Hypatia is best known in history for her spectacular martyrdom a t the hands of a frenzied mob. Most accounts of her death lay hlame on local power struggles, rooted in the city's fractious and volatile populace and longstanding history of political riots, while some attribute i t specifically to the enmity of Cyril, bishop of Alexandria. Whatever the actual motives, a mob incited by a group of monks seized her from her chariot, tortured her to death, and burned her body. Along with the destruction in 391 A.D. by another rioting mob of the last remnant of the Alexandrian Library-once the most renowned depository of learning in the Graecc-Roman world-Hypatia's death has become a symbol of the passing of pre-Christian philosophy and civilization. With the dissolution of the unity of the Mediterranean world a t the hands of barbarian invaders of Europe and Moslem ones of Africa, science, philosophy, and other learned disciplines fell upon hard times. Although the works of Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Galen were preserved and read in the Byzantine and Moslem empires, knowledge of ancient science in western Europe survived precariously for centuries primarily in a few encyclopedic digests, such as that by Isidore of Seville. Consequently Spain and southern Italy, which had the closest regular peaceful contact with Moslem and Byzantine culture, were major centers of the 12th century "revival of learning". Monasteries such as that in Cremona were major centers for the copying, translating, and disseminating of newly recovered ancient Greek texts and the lively intellectual debates they occasioned. T o this process the convents-the chief sources for the limited educational opportunities then available to women-made a notable contribution. Heloise, remembered today as the lover and correspondent of Ahelard, was a highly esteemed physician, as was the German nun Elizabeth of SchBnau (6, 11). Another German nun and physician, the abbess Herrad of Landsberg, compiled her Hortus Deliciarum between 1160 and 1190, which for centuries was a major source for information on flora, fauna, and technological devices (4,6). Undoubtedly the most outstanding woman scholar of the
12th century Renaissance, however, was Hildegard of Bingen (109LL1179) . (1.6.11). . , . . Born in theGerman Rhineland. she w& cloistered at age eight, educated in the ~ e n e d i k i n e convent of Disenbodenhure, and subseauentlv became its abbess. From childhood onward she suffer& prolonged bouts of illness and experienced mvstic visions. After one such vision she sought i n d obtained permission to found a new convent near Bingen in 1145, which rapidly grew to become one of the most important spiritual centers in Europe. As its abbess until her death, Hildegard also wielded considerable political influence, corresponding frequently with emperors, kings, and popes. Her writings include musical compositions and works on medicine a n d theological cosmology. The medical works, Causae et Curae and Physics. assimilate standard Galenic medicines with German folkremedies. The latter were based on homeopathic principlesand theUdortrineofsienatures", which held that God at the Creation had marked plants and k i m a l s with characteristics signifying their medical utility-theories central to the later iatrochemical school of Paracelsus (1493-1541) and his followers. Book V of Causae contained the then-novel suggestion that drinking water first he boiled. In the Sciuias (1141-51), and theLiberDiuinorum Operum (1162-lo), Hildegard propounded speculative models of the universe based on the "macrocosm-microcosm" principle, which held human beinpls to beaminiatureDattern of the structures and operations of the cosmos and fiubject to its influences in correspondine features. The Sciuias intertwines elemenw of ~ ~ t h a ~ o r e a n ~ c o s m oand l o gnumerology ~ with Christian mysticism, particularly in the recurring cosmological and theological significance of the number four. The Liber Diuinorum, by contrast, evinces Hildegard's subsequent acquaintance with Ptolemaic astronomy, and considerably reworks these elements to bring them moreclosely in line with commonlv held contemoor& views. A concurrent development of the revival of learning was the rise of the first universities, beginning with the medical schools of Italy. Given the limited access to education generally afforded medieval women, i t is interesting to note there an early tradition of female medical students and instructors. One of the earliest and most famous was Trotula of Salerno (d. 1097?), also called Trocte, Trottola, and Tortola invarious sources (1,21). Her husband, John Platearius, and a t least one of her sons were also physicians. Trotula was the author of the Passionibus Mulierum Curandorum (Diseases of Women), the standard text on that subject for several centuries to come. Although thoroughly grounded on Galenic and Hippocratic theories, the Passionibus stressed practice over theory and prevention over cure and avoided many common drastic medieval remedies. recommendine instead such modern-sounding advice as proper rest, exercise, and nutrition. Trotula dealt extensivelv with such maladies as menstrual irregularity, infertility, -and difficult childhirth, introducing a technique for repairing a ruptured perineum. The Regimen San~rarisSalwnitatun~(Salernian Regimen of Health), a compendium of medical maxims and cures heavily indebted toTrotula, went through 20editions before 1500 alone. Other notable medieval Italian women physicians were Ahella (fl. 14th c.) of Salerno, author of two lost medical treatises; Dorotea Rocchi (fl. 13YO), professor at Ro1ogna:and AlessandraGiliani (fl. c. 1318J.ananatomistat Bologna credited with devising the technique of injecting dye into blood vessels for dissection studies (6,21). A particularly interesting social phenomenon is the medieval Jewish woman phvsician. Despite their wide disnersal across the ~ e d i t e r r a n i a nworld even before the rise bf the Roman Empire, ancient Jews retained a strong cultural and religious identity that transcended geographic and linguistic boundaries. With the disintegration of the Empire, followed by the 7th century Moslem conquest of North Africa and Spain, Jews were uniquely positioned to serve as agents for
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cultural transmission between Christian and Moslem domains. Some Christians in the earlv Middle Ages viewed medicine with suspicion, due to the lack of knowle-dge resulting from the loss of the Galenic corpus and the frequent resort hy physicians to astrology for aid in making diagnoses. These were not obstacles for Jews, given their more ready access to Galen and his Arabic commentators and the greater compatibility of astrology to the mystical Kohholo. Thus, in medieval Eurone Jews assumed a dominant d a c e in the medical professii. When combined with longs&ding Jewish cultural traditions and secular folk beliefs in women's unique access to arcane knowledge, the basis was laid for the prominent role of Jewish women medieval physicians. Surviving documents provide a fascinating picture of how possession-;,f a n e r e s r a j and valuahle social skill allowed these women to surmount the dual liabilities of being female and Jewish in a male-eoverned and Christian society. Legal .-~~~ records of such matters as payment or exemption f*om taxation, licenses and title deeds, and personal writs issued by nobility, constitute the largest body of evidence (22, 23). Some documents mention the person by name; others offer only the anonymous entry ~udenertztynne(female Jewish physican). One such person was sued in Frankfurt in 1428 for evasion of taxes. Another was forbidden to remain there unless she paid the Nochtgeld, a special tax assessed rabbis and cantors; it is noteworthy that the amount was considerably less than that assessed for Jews engaged in business enterprises, suggesting that medicine was viewed instead as an intellectual profession. Other documents from the 1300's erant relief from the so-called "Jew tax" in exchange for rervires provided to the city. Yet another records a woman nhvsician granted relief from the Schlolgeld, or tax imposed in that city. One on-transients, to induce her to Barbara, daughter of a physician, received one florin from Frankfurt in 1394 as payment for healing wounded soldiers a t the battle of Wissenkirchen. A particularly successful women physician of the 15th century was Sarah of Wurzburg. The resident archbishop, John 11, issued her a license to practice medicine in exchange for an annual payment: ~
Concerning the Jewess, the dodoress, franchised for three years; 1419. We, John [etc.], make known [etc.], as heretofore agreed upon, that Sarah the Jewess, the doctoress, is to pay annually for the Golden Pence, two florins, and in addition also ten florins far taxes and as a voluntary contribution. Thus we shall let it stand for the time as thus agreed upon for the next three full years so that she may practice her profession without interference on our part or of those belonging to us, unconditionally, and should anyone intend to prosecute her or actually do so, against such a one we shall take action to the best of our ability so that be be stopped, unconditionally. Dated the spring of 1419. Such a guarantee of protection and patronage from a noble was of particular value to a Jew, who otherwise might he subject to deprivation of property or even of life in one of the periodic persecutions. Sarah's practice was apparently quite lucrative, for some years later she purchased an estate from a minor noble, Friedrich von Riedern-most unusual in a time when - - - - women's riehts to own nronertv . . in their own names were considerabl; restricted. he surviving deed bears the signatures of the entire court of nobility (22): We, Reinhardt of Masspaeh, Bishop of Wurzhurg and Judge of the Duchy in Franconia,make known to all people with this letter that Sarah the Jewess, the doctoress of Wurzburg, has gained through legal procedure and after proper charges and verdict, the usufrueht of his body and his possessions and upon all that is his in the Duchy of Franconia,whatever it may be called and wherever it may be situated or named. We declare that said Sarah the Jewess in usufrueht of all the ahove named possessions with the force and power of this letter. Several surviving testimonials attest to the skill of Jewish female physicians. The German rabbi, Judah ben Asher 104
Journal of Chemical Education
(1270-1349), related in detail how one cured his eye problem. One Salome of Cracow in the 1200's is said to have "worked day and night for the salvation of souls and for the healing of bodies." Virdimura, wife to Pasquale the physician of Sicily, was licensed to practice medicine in 1376 after a special examination by court physicians, in recognition of praise given to her by many indigent patients (24). Another example is Sarah de Saint Gilles, wife of Abraham of Montnellier., who ~racticedmedicine and took on an~rentices. Some years later the now-widowed Sarah agreeh-in a contract to teach medicine to Salvet de Boureneuf, son of Davin, for seven months and to provide his room and board in exchanee for anv earnines from his patients during his internship. ~ a r a h ' a l s o heided a medical sihool in Montpellier for a period of time (25). Records likewise survive of a Sarah la Mirgesse who taught and practiced medicine in Paris in 1292. Such informal or private schools and apprenticeships, as opposed to regular university studies, were probably fairly common, since normally not only women but also married men were forbidden to matriculate. Without a license from city authorities, though, such practitioners could be and often were subject to criminal prosecution. The physician Jacohina Felicie is an especially noteworthy case (6, 22, 26-28). Born in Florence about 1280, she practiced medicine in Paris in the 1320's, presumably after private study. She gained a considerable reputation for being able to cure cases that had defied other doctors. One Father Odo remarked that she was "wiser in the art of surgery or medicine than any master physician or surgeon in Pnris." --In the the dean of the medical facultv a t the ~ - 1320's - ~ University of Paris brought charges against her for practicing medicine without a license, citing a n edict of 1220 forbidding anyone except a member of the University faculty from practicing in the vicinity. Seven patients testified for her of cures she had affected for fevers, kidney problems, and arthritis. While admittine her successes, the court declared that she could not have properly diagnosed the ailments because she had not studied the University curricula and read its texts! Jacobina herself argued that the edict of 1220 was intended only to prohibit unlearned quacks without any training, and infringement upon privileges of the medical faculty by other faculty members. She then added a plea for the training and licensing of female physicians in order to preserve female modesty and honor:
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It is better and more honest that a wise and expert woman in this art visit sick women, and inquire into the secret nature of their infirmity, than a man to whom it is not permitted to see, inquire of, or touch the hands, breasts, stomach, etc. of a woman; nay, rather ought aman toshun the secrets ofwoman and their company and flee as far as he can. And a woman before now would permit herself to die rather than reveal the secrets of her infirmity to any man, because of the honor of the female sex and the shame which she would feel. And this is the cause of many women, and also men, dying of their infirmities, not wishing to have doctors see their secret parts. And on this there has been public sentiment, and the Dean and Masters will not deny it. Eventually the charges were withdrawn and the prosecution dropped; nevertheless, a n injunction was issued preventing her and several other men and women without university trainine from nracticing medicine in the Paris area. As else, would not he admitted to medical where h ~ u r o b ewomen school in France until the 19th century, with the Vniversity of Paris finally opening its doors in 1868. With the Reformation of the 16th century and the scientific revolution that accompanied it, the nature of science and the role of women in science began to change dramaticallv. - - - -, and in recent vears manv of the obstacles that limited women's participation in the sciences have gradually lessened. Recognition of the achievements of such modern Nobel prize winning women scientists as Barbara McClintock, Rita Levi-Montalcini, and Gertrude Elion has helped to
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soark studv of their predecessors from previous centuries a i d re-evaiuation of women's substantial but low-neglerted contributions to scientific knowledge. While valuable scholarly research on women in the history ofacience is now being done, the surface has barely been scratched; it remains a rich and rewarding field, inviting further cultivation by women and men alike. Literature Clted
H i k W& Comwall, 1986. 3. Herzenher~,C. L. J. Coll. Sci. Teaching 1987,16,124127. 4. Rabiere, A. Les Femmar dons la Science; Nony: Paris, 1891. 5. Levey, M. Chemistry and Chrmirol Technology in Aneienf Meaopotomio; Elsevier:
13. ~ e n c h e lS. , V. Nature, in pres. 14. Berthelot, M. Lo Chimieou Moyen Age:Philo- Amsterdam, 1967. 15. Taylor, F. S. The Alehemiafr: Founders of Modern Chemistry: Hcinemann: London, ,"=a **"".
16. Hopkinn, A. J. A1chrmy:Child of Greek Philo8ophy:ColumbiaUniveraity:Now York. 7-?A A""-.
17. Tsy1ot.F.S. Ambk 1931.1,3&47. 18. Pafai, R.Ambir 1982.29.177-197. 19. Charles. R.H., et al., Eda. The Apocrypha ond Pseudoepigmpha of tho Old Testament: Clarendon: Oxford, 1964. 20. Lindsay, J. The Origins of Alchemyin Groeeo-RomanEgypt; Muller: London. 1970. 21. LioinsLa. M. Histoire des Femme8 Medicins depuia I'AnLiquite jusqub Nos Jours; Jacques: Paria, 19W. 22. Riedenrusld, H.The Jews in Medicine; Johns Hopkins: Baltimore. 1944. 23. hiedemusld. H. Medical Fickuiek 1920.6.283-2M. 24. S e w , M. Pog. Stor. Med. I910,14,98-106. 25. Bsudoin, M. Gar. Med. Poris IN)I,22,169172. 26. Hughes, M. J. W o m n Healers in Medieval Life ond Literature; Baohs for Libraries: Freeport, 1968. 27. Schacher. S.. Coordinator. Hypolio'8 Siatem:Biogrophies of Women Seisnfisfa-Pod ond Resent:Feminists Northvest Seattle. 1976. 28. Ehrenreieh. B.; English, D. Witches, Miduiue8 and N u r x s : A History of Women Heaiars: Feminirt: Old Westbury, NY. 1973.
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