AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF WOMEN IN MEDICINE* I. MEDICAL WOMEN BEFORE CHRISTIANITY(Continued)* By KATE CAMPBELL HURD-MEAD, M. D. HADDAM, CONN. The Medic al Women of Rome an d Ita ly In the great poems of Homer, as we have seen, women played a consider- Turning from Greece with its many able part as healers of disease, and in medical women, anthropomorphic god- the fourth century b .c ., we found such desses, famous artists and writers, women as Aspasia and Artemisia great mathematicians and philoso- standing out as types of the learning phers, to Rome and the Etruscans, we and morality of their times, for at find that there were few notably educated medical men or women in least there was not a double stand- ard of so-called morality then. Two Italy before Corinth was taken in 146 hundred years later both sexes de- b .c ., when the Greeks fell into the generated rapidly and became weak hands of the Romans who carried physically, and were mentally quite back to their homes as slaves many unable to follow up any new medical skilful men and women doctors. interests. Polytheism then developed We recall that one of the reasons to such an extent that even the Greeks for condemning Socrates to death was in Rome were ready to adopt any for teaching his pupils that there were number of new gods, one for every too many gods in the Greek Pantheon. symptom of each disease.1 The gods This in the eyes of the Romans would were named according to the dis- have been no crime, for polytheism eases they healed. There was Scabies, prevailed among them to a greater extent than even in Assyria or Egypt. Genitamana, Nascia, Fecunditas, An- Sir Flinders Petrie has said that gitia or Angina, or Angerona, who was civilization everywhere is an inter- the goddess of silence and of laryn- mittent phenomenon. The Romans gitis,2 mentioned by Macrobius, Flac- cus, and Pliny as the goddess of pain of 50 b .c . were no more learned than and sore throat, and skilled in using the Greeks of 500 b .c ., and they were poisons and antidotes.3 It was said naturally irresponsible and change- able, both in their religion and in their 1 Jayne, W. A., The Healing Gods of Ancient Civilization (1925). politics, so that by 500 a .d . they 2 Theodocius Macrobius. Saturnalia, Lib. were as completely assimilated by the 1. Cap. x, p. 160. Goths as they themselves had assimi- 3 Harless, C. F. Die Verdienste der Frauen lated the Greeks. The Persians held um Naturwissenschaft und Heilkunde (1830), pp. 90-91. out a trifle longer, but in the seventh Tiraquellus also quotes from Macrobius century a .d . they adopted in the main and Flaccus as to the ability of Angitia and the ways and religion of the conquer- Angerona. He says that the Romans gave the ing Mohammedans. name angina to sorethroat because of the *To be completed in six parts. Preceding Sections appeared in the January, 1933, issue, p. 1 and March, 1933, issue, p. 171. to be Fecunditas who delivered Agrip- cians allowed in her sacred precincts pina when Nero was born, although as healers of diseases of women. Venus and Diana were supposed to be Feronia and Fortuna1 were two other important goddesses with medi- cal attributes to whom numerous temples were built. The temple to Fortuna, at Tivoli, still stands on a high terrace above the waterfalls, a beautiful monument to the artistic talents of the Roman architects. She was the divinity of all young girls who desired babies, and her name was gen- erally coupled with that of Hygeia. Salus, or Safety-first, was considered a colleague of Hygeia, and during the plague Salus and Hygeia were helped in their work by Apollo and Asclepias present as well as the great queen of or Esculapius. A statute to Salus the gods, Juno herself. stood in the temple of Concord in the At Lake Nemi the supreme goddess Roman Forum where she was busily was Diana, one of whose specialties worshipped, and her own temple stood was to treat all diseases of women. on the Quirinal hill. Almost countless clay models of the Carna, another goddess, had charge uterus have been found near her of both male and female internal shrine, together with the torch, the organs. In her honor the devotees ate symbol of midwives and of the Mater bean gruel and bacon one day in the Matuta who in the early hours of the year in order to insure good digestion morning opened the uterus and bade for the rest of the year. the baby come forth. More than two Cloacina and Febris were the two hundred years before the coming of important gods of fevers. The special the Greeks there was an altar to the season of Cloacina was in February Matuta in the Forum Boarium, in when marriages were not allowed Rome, as well as other temples and because the Dis Manes of departed shrines to her along the sea coast in spirits were especially active send- the Etruscan cities. ing diseases to people and keeping Bona Dea was the symbol of fertil- Cloacina busy. Febris was the goddess ity, health and longevity. Her temple of malarial fevers and of the Roman on the Aventine hill contained a cave marshes, and evidently quite unable filled with herbs to cure sterility, and to cope with her business as the popu- it was also the abode of sacred snakes. lation of Rome and the Campagna Pigs and money were offered at her increased. To her there were three shrine as at the temple of Demeter in temples on the hills of Rome to which Eleusis. Women were the only physi- patients were taken to be purified by a severe diet and bitter herbs. skill of the goddess who was originally a woman. Vergil, Aeneid, I, 83, speaks of her 1 Fowler, W. W. Roman Festivals of the skill and says that she was a priestess. Period of the Republic (1899). The Greek Minerva, however, was There were altars not only “to the the great medical goddess as well as unknown god” of whom St. Paul warrior. A temple in her honor was spoke on Mars’ Hill, but to others, built on nearly every hill in Rome, and her altar stood next to that of Jupiter himself on the Capitoline. Without her favor not one man of the Legion would start for Gaul, and many altars were erected to her as well as to Mars in far-away England. Even Cicero praised her skill and said if any one applied to her he would need no other doctor, but he also added, “I believe that those who recover from illness are more indebted to the care of Hippocrates than to the power of Asclepias.” His own physi- “si deus si dea,” or “Genio urbis cian was Asclepiades, a Greek (born Romae sive mas sive femina.”1 To 124 b .c .), whom we shall discuss later. Venus Genetrix, however, were given (De Natura Deorum, in, 38) the most costly presents. Julius Caesar FabuIIa and Foquetia are almost as presented to her six collections of common names among the fabled cameos, rare paintings, beautiful stat- healers of Rome as some of our names uary, and finely cut gems, all of which of saints today. Suidas, Eusebius, were kept in her temple as in a and Octavius Horatianus quoted them museum. with respect. FabuIIa was called by Isis and Bubastis, Egyptian god- Galen “Lybica” and by Cornarius, desses of healing, were worshipped “Livia,” as if she were a living medical at Lake Nemi along with Diana, and woman in their time. (See Baas, in the ruins of1 their temples were p. I34.)1 found diadems, gold cups and plates, Vergil gives us many a hint of the necklaces and other jewelry, draperies state of medicine during his life. For of heavy silk loaded with gems, vases, instance, when Aeneas was wounded water jugs, and silver effigies of the by an arrow, Venus told lapis to re- goddesses. Lanciani speaks of the move the arrow and wash the wound medical offerings to Diana at Nemi and heal it with the dictamnus plant. which were so numerous as to prove Hie Venus, indigno nati concussa dolore, its great importance as a hydro- Dictamnum genetrix Cretaea carpit ab Ida. therapeutic center. Some of the ex- (Aeneid xii , lines 411-4.12) votos represent young mothers nurs- ing their babies, some are surgical Ovid, also, knew all the healing breasts like those found at the temple gods and he especially praised Anna of Esculapius on the Island in the Perenna, “Dido’s sister,” one of the Tiber, and many of the treasures celestial medical faculty. found at both these places seem to show that there were near-by shops 1 Lanciani, R. Pagan and Christian Rome (1893), pp. 54, 60, 73. 1 Lanciani, pp. 72-73. manufacturing them for the pilgrims. themselves in order to drain off the The shrine of Minerva, on the Esqui- water, for, they reasoned, if Escu- line hill, has been a mine of such Iapius had willed that malaria should trinkets, among them certain amusing not be cured it would be folly to try ones like a head with bald spots pre- to cure it. A little later, in the time of sented by TuIIia Superiana, with the Augustus, the Sibylline Oracle told legend, “ Restitutione sibi facta capil- the Romans that as the Greeks had Iorum.” At Veii, of the Etruscans, brought malaria, so to the Greek votive offerings accumulated so fast temples of Esculapius the Romans that from time to time the old presents must go to get the sacred snakes and were thrown down the hillside, a cliff build temples to the Greek god wher- 198 feet high where, in the course of ever the snakes chose to live.