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Home , Agnodice, Cloacina, Diana (mythology), Feronia (Etruria), Gardens of Maecenas, Herophilos

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 an d Ita ly In the great poems of Homer, as we have seen, women played a consider- Turning from 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 before Corinth was taken in 146 hundred years later both sexes de- b .c ., when the 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 , who was civilization everywhere is an inter- the of silence and of laryn- mittent phenomenon. The Romans gitis,2 mentioned by , 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), out a trifle longer, but in the seventh pp. 90-91. 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 was born, although as healers of diseases of women. and were supposed to be and Fortuna1 were two other important with medi- cal attributes to whom numerous temples were built. The temple to , 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. , or Safety-first, was considered a colleague of Hygeia, and during the plague Salus and Hygeia were helped in their work by and Asclepias present as well as the great queen of or Esculapius. A statute to Salus the gods, herself. stood in the temple of Concord in the At Lake the supreme goddess 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 . 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 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 , 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 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 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 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, , I, 83, speaks of her 1 Fowler, W. W. of the skill and says that she was a priestess. Period of the Republic (1899). The Greek , 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 ’ Hill, but to others, built on nearly every hill in Rome, and her altar stood next to that of himself on the Capitoline. Without her favor not one man of the Legion would start for , and many altars were erected to her as well as to Mars in far-away England. Even 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 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 (, in, 38) the most costly presents. 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- “Lybica” and by Cornarius, desses of healing, were worshipped “Livia,” as if she were a living medical at 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 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 , 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 , 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 , the Sibylline told legend, “ Restitutione sibi facta capil- the Romans that as the Greeks had Iorum.” At , 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. And ages they formed a slope reaching so it happened that after the battle nearly to the top of the cliff. These of Actium, 31 b .c ., when the Romans votive offerings were models of every were bringing home the trophies of part of the human body, outside or war and of plunder, they also brought inside.1 a number of yellow snakes which But, on the other hand, there were slyly escaped from the boat while many Romans in those early days passing the island in the Tiber and who, when in pain, trusted more in there quickly hid in a cave. Taking their mothers and grandmothers than this as an the Romans built a in the gods. Cato said that the average temple to Esculapius above the cave family had a good supply of home and there carried on all the practices remedies. Cabbage was a great favor- of the old Greeks, the incubation ite; its leaves made poultices, its juice sleep, the , the amusements, mixed with honey healed fistulas and and they erected votive tablets telling sores, and a tea of cabbage was used of their cures, and presented to the for debility. Pliny, as we shall see god models of and abdominal later, praised the homegrown herbs organs, etc., etc., many of which are and thcriac. now in the archeological museums Lucretius, in his De rerum natura, of the world. (See Fig. 24.) This 60 b .c ., thundering aginst the old gods temple was used as a refuge for sick of Greece, asserted confidently that slaves who, if they did not die, were the world is composed of indestruct- freed when cured. Often the cures ible atoms and that no treatment of were as sudden as at Lourdes today, disease even by gods could change the and sometimes a sloughing wound was fate of mortals. But, curiously enough, healed the minute the ashes from the neither he nor Cicero mentioned any altar touched it, while a diet of pine organs below the belt in their descrip- cones or nuts succeeded miraculously tion of bodily infirmities. Caesar im- in stopping hemoptysis and curing a bibed somewhat of the Hippocratic spirit and more than half believed in wasting cough. The temple sleep was, the prevention of disease, but though however, the important part of the he felt that something in the marshes cure, as even today in the island of caused malaria he could not convince Tenos, where a picture of the Virgin, the Romans that they should tax said to have been painted by St. 1 Ibid, p. 66. Luke, still works miracles of healing. Before the conquest of Corinth by or in Spain before 200 b .c . About the Romans, in 146 b .c ., there had that time we find Plautus and Terence been little scientific medical work in mentioning Roman midwives in a

what is now Italy or her provinces. disparaging sort of way and making Spain was even more remote from the allusions to their habits of imbibing , as we may see from too freely of strong wines. About one the and busts and votive offer- hundred and fifty years later Ovid ings found in Spain dating from the also made them a butt of his ridicule. days when the Carthaginians and the He shows us a mental picture of the Greeks were merely the traders with midwives of his time in despair over the Iberians before the persistent a slow labor and shouting four to invasions, conquests and settlements seven times with loud and louder of the Romans. The Greek influence voice to the goddess Diana for help is shown much more in Sicily, where and haste while all the people in the there were larger Greek colonies than house sit with crossed legs and twisted in any part of Spain until after the fingers until labor is eventually termi- Roman conquest, although then it nated. Doubtless there were mid- was that the art, architecture, phi- wives of that kind, but with the losophy and science of the Greeks advent of the Greek slaves after the profoundly moulded Spanish thought taking of Corinth, especially of the and studies. well-trained midwives and educated We know very little of the medical women doctors, conditions began to conditions either in Etruscan Italy be greatly improved in Italy at least. It was a very long time, however, During the reigns of Julius Caesar, before the Romans modified some of Augustus, and there were their old barbaric practices as to the many medical women practicing in Rome. They were called Medicae, Obstetricae, and Sagae; and while Cato classed all medical practitioners with mountebanks and robbers, wom- en doctors were also often classed with abortionists and poisoners. There probably was at that time a lower standard in medicine at Rome than in Greece, for the Roman schools had never equalled the Greek schools. During the first century b .c ., wom- en did all the obstetric work in Italy and the Roman provinces. They usu- ally made their visits in chairs borne on the shoulders of stalwart men who jostled one another noisily in the narrow streets, so narrow that it was necessary to turn into a side street to let a chariot or heavily laden don- key-cart pass. Slops of all kinds were thrown into the streets to add to the filth in the gutters which eventu- acceptance of the new-born baby by ally poured into the great cloaca, and its father. If he denied that the child thence into the Tiber. One can see was his it might be left to die, or such muddy lanes today in many of thrown, like and Remus, to the small towns on the hills above the the wild beasts or serpents. If the , where the old father did claim the child he named it stone houses in winter are as cold as on the ninth day and registered it at the grave and the people sit out of the Treasury on the eleventh. The doors in the bel sole to get warm. wishes of the mother were scarcely The age of Augustus that produced taken into account until long after a wealth of famous men and had many the Greek culture had become fashion- devotees to agriculture as well as to able, and Greek women doctors were medicine, has been called the “Golden the family physicians of the masses. Age of Rome.” Both Varro and Vergil The nearer we come to the time of wrote books for the farmer as well Christ, however, the more medical as for the nobility. and activity we find in pagan Rome.1 and wrote geographical trea- 1 A few dates may save the reader some research: Vergil, 70-19 b .c .; Augustus, 63-14 Tarentum fl. 75 b .c ., were both famous b .c .; Julius Caesar, 102-44 b .c .; Cicero died, physicians at that time. 43 b .c .; Musa was the physician to Vergil The calendar held its own from and Augustus and . Asclepiades was 45 b .c . to 1582 a .d . in the Church of Rome, physician to Cicero, born 124 b .c . Themison and until 1752 in England, and it was in force of Laodicaea, fl. 50 b .c ., and Heraclides of in Russia even into the 19th century. tises, while Philalethes was writing a erased and used again for another book on the diseases of children, subject. Celsus, at the time of Tiberi- and Celsus, Scribonius Largus and us, said somewhere that he could find

Musa were writing on general medi- no books of seventy-two authors cine. Sarton (p. 221) says that it was known to him through history, and a time of application to old theories, of Varro’s 620 books only one volume however, not of scientific creation. and a half remain today. One of New medical schools were opening Musa’s works was dedicated to his in every direction, one of them having wealthy patient Maecenas, a book on been founded privately by Cicero’s diet, baths, and the necessity of physician, Asclepiades, in 50 b .c . fasting according to the quarter of This eventually became the Scbola the . Maecenas was a hearty medicorum of Rome in the time of eater, and Musa must have felt that Celsus, 14 a .d ., and then, having he was in danger of dying from a become a government school in the condition called strictum, perhaps what time of Vespasian, it lasted until the we call arteriosclerosis. He treated time of Theodoric the Great, 526 a .d . his patients according to the color of The teaching was mainly in Greek, the urine, gave them nauseating medi- but its books were in as were cines or an herb like betony which those of the . he used for forty-seven diseases in- Since Antonius Musa was the phy- cluding broken heads, sore eyes, pain sician to Vergil and to Augustus in this in the bladder, bites of dogs, and brilliant age we should give him a pains of labor, although he ordered little space here, for he evidently was cold baths for Augustus and thereby a type of the then popular physician, cured him of many of his symptoms although about fifty years later very of stomach trouble. Vergil1 said that few of his writings were remembered Musa was in love with his profession, and by the time of Galen only two beloved of his patients, popular with small booklets were in existence. This 1 Crawford, R. Antonius Musa. Contribu- was no unusual thing when libraries tions to Medical and Biological Research were scattered by fire, or books lost dedicated to Sir William Osler. N. Y., carelessly, or pages of manuscript Hoeber, 1919, 1: 24. the rich as well as with the poor, attention to the symptoms of disease, knowing all drugs, but depending on believing that all diseases had one and very few. It is pleasant to think of the same cause. The Asclepiadists the gatherings of these noted men at were Methodists, believing in a condi- the villa of Maecenas on the Esquiline tion of strictum and Iaxum, or of Hill, or at Horace’s farm in the Sabine tenseness and looseness, of high or hills, or on the at the low pressure. Soranus of Ephe- great palace of the emperor, walking sus was an exponent of these theories, and talking with Vergil, or stopping to while Themison was a go-between, say a prayer at the altar of Esculapius believing also somewhat of the the- in the Forum, near which Augustus ories of the Empiricists, or experi- erected a to Musa himself in menters and students of poison, and gratitude for his own cure. The wife thus incurring the sarcasm of Martial, of Augustus, Livia, as we shall soon who asks in a stinging epigram how see, had studied medicine, and many many patients Themison has killed of the women of the royal family in a year. Celsus, however, wrote for were skilled in the practice of certain all sects. He was a great friend of schools and went about among the Horace, the poet (who died 8 b .c .), sick slaves in their private hospitals, and it is said that they spent many such as those of Maecenas and Livia a quiet hour together in the library and Augusta. We cannot fail, how- of Augustus, on the Palatine Hill. ever, to sympathize with Horace in Later, in the time of Tiberius, Juvenal the pangs of dyspepsia, and Maecenas made one of the group of literati, in a fit of gout, and Augustus worried giving us glimpses of the medical over his pimply face, and Vergil with practice as he saw it, and dilating on his consumptive cough from which the vices and the general immorality all his relatives died, although he of the time.1 Juvenal tells us of the actually died of sunstroke at the age immoderate bleeding and cupping, of fifty-one. the large doses of aconite for quartan One of the great medical writers of fever, and many other remedies from the time of Augustus and his im- the point of view of a layman, but mediate successors was Celsus, who Celsus says that all the good doctors “flourished,” as Sarton says, under were doing their best to cure patients Tiberius, i.e. from 14 to 37 a .d . He both by surgery and by palatable was a literary aristocrat, not a medical drugs. Celsus was a friend to the women practitioner, and though his work was doctors of Rome and he gives us a an encyclopedia of all knowledge, picture of them in their busy practice following those of Cato and Varro, as they went about with pleasant it was the most complete medical tasting remedies tucked into their work after that of Hippocrates.1 He pockets or bag, followed by slaves belonged to none of the so-called carrying their instruments, and the schools of medicine of his time, nei- latest book of Thessalus, on Methodic ther that of the Methodists (pro- treatment, under one arm. The slaves nounced with long o) nor of the 1 Cordell, E. F. The medicine and doctors Empyricists, nor yet that of his con- of Juvenal. Johns Hopkins Hosp. Bull., p. temporary Themison, who paid no 283, 1903. 1 Sarton, op. cit. p. 240. Horace and Medicine. Ibid., p. 233, 1901. collected the flasks of urine, applied rate, there was a great temptation leeches to the stricti, or gave poppy- to study medicine, since doctors were juice to the Iaxati, and held the exempt from taxation but the good patients during operations. Among iatrinai had to compete with all sorts their instruments were bronze handled of blatant quacks. There was Thes- knives with steel blades, a pair of salus, as an example of a teacher of polypus forceps with ivory handles medicine who boasted that he “fin- like dolphins, instruments for re- ished” his pupils in six months no moving arrow tips and lance heads matter what their previous learning from wounds, a bone elevator and a might have been. His graduates usu- drill bow for trephining the , ally became examiners of the gladia- tenacula, catheters, curets, spatulas, tors. Cato, Juvenal, and Martial all needle holders and needles, slabs for tell the story of one quack who talked mixing ointments, scales for weighing to his dupes through the mouth of a drugs, cupping vessels, and other snake, and another who wrote his instruments like those found in Pom- messages on a sealed slate. These men peii and the buried cities of this time. had enigmatical signs over their doors Harless1 speaks of the Greek women such as, “Phoebus unshown dispels doctors in Rome during the first two the demon of disease.” centuries of the Christian era, as Ncuburger, on the other hand,1 iatrinai or medicae. He says they were tells us that the training of the women mainly Empiricists and midwives. Baas doctors and obstetricians was often (p. 117) says that the medicae and very good. They attended classes at sagae were the worst sinners against the best Greek schools where the the Hippocratic law, and adds that professors were well paid, and they they were often prostitutes who used studied surgery as well as general every method for producing abortion. medicine, and had practical experi- We can only add that on the theory ence in obstetrics before taking cases of probabilities most of them were of their own.2 probably rather good and honest than Soranus of (98-138 a .d .) bad practitioners, for, as Marcus wrote a book on obstetrics and gyne- Aurelius said, “the wheel of the world cology for the women students of his hath always the same motion, upward day in which he says that the obstetrix and downward from generation to must know how to read and write,3 generation,” and although we know must be free from superstitions, have something of the mountebanks and good sight and hearing, sharp intellect, quacks, we also do know something strong arms and legs, soft hands, and about the good physicians. If no long, thin fingers with short and clean libraries had been lost, or burned by nails, must understand , hy- later censors, and no manuscripts giene, therapeutics, the normal as destroyed by editors or copyists, there well as abnormal conditions of the might be a very different story as to 1 Neuburger, M. Geschichte cler Medizin women doctors from that occasionally (1911), p. 281. accepted by German scholars. At any 2 Von Siebold. Geschichte der Geburts- htilfe (1901) p. 173. 1 Harless, C. F. Die Verdienste der Frauen 3 H. Liineburg, und Huber, J. C. Transl. um Naturwissenschaft und Heilkunde (1930), Die Gynakologie des Soranus von Ephesus p. 120. (1894). body, must love her work, keep secrets head high after its eyes have been honorably, and have had considerable bathed with water containing a little experience before undertaking to care salt and soda. All this sounds like the for patients alone. Soranus continues, teachings of Hippocrates and it is also “That midwife is the most capable quite modern. who knows the whole realm of ther- Sarton says (p. 95 ff.) that Soranus apy, dietetics, surgery, pharmacy, discusses the question as to whether and who can give good advice, is not men and women have different dis- worried by sudden complications and eases because of their different func- is prepared to save her patient’s life tions, finally deciding that the two if possible, for she will often be called sexes do differ so markedly that to visit the seriously sick.” He adds women should therefore be treated that she need not have had children only by women who can understand of her own in order to care for a their anatomy, in fact, says he, “A woman in labor, nor should she be midwife is demanded by the public.” very young (not under twenty years On the other hand, however, he quotes of age nor over forty). Her knowledge Zeno and and Asclepiades of anatomy of the hidden organs and Thessalos and Themison as teach- should equal that of those that can be ing that the diseases of men and seen. She should know how to perform women differ only slightly, though men version, but she should never harm a do not have babies; while Herophilos patient. Soranus makes a distinction disagreed with them all, because to between women doctors and nurses1 him the uterus seemed to be a mere (p. 64), and he says that a wet-nurse muscle and therefore it could not should have had three or four children influence the rest of the body. of her own, must be healthy and have Soranus illustrated his gynecology firm breasts. During difficult labor a with pictures of the obstetric chair, midwife should have three assistant of syringes, the vaginal speculum, etc. nurses to encourage the patient, rub His book, written in Greek, was her abdomen, be ready to receive the copied and recopied more or less new baby, rub it with salt, bathe it, imperfectly for hundreds of years by but never nurse it until her body has monks who understood scarcely a become cool and rested, and she must word of what they were writing be- always throw away the first drops of cause in the it was con- her milk lest they should have been sidered beneath a man’s province to overheated. He condemns the custom treat or even understand women’s of the Greeks and Scythians of plung- diseases. The teachings of Soranus ing the new baby into cold water, and were written in such a manner as to be of it in the urine of a healthy easy to memorize, for we can scarcely child, or in wine. If the baby does not cry lustily, believe that every medical woman Soranus adds, the cool air of the room had a private library of manuscripts. will soon prove effective, and then it Soranus long outlived his generation. must be kept warm, and lie with its Aetius, in the 6th century, classed him among the four great masters: 1 Soranus of Ephesus. De Arte obstetricia morbisque mulierum quae supersunt, Dietz, Rufus and Soranus, on gynecology; 1838. Leonidas on surgery; and Philumenus, quoting from , on drugs; Olympias could not have been the entirely omitting the great Galen.1 mother of the great Alexander, as Turning to , who suggests, because the early was killed while watching the destruc- Olympias was a specialist in poi- tion of in a .d . 79, we find sons and antidotes. Photius, a dis- according to Sarton (p. 249) that he tinguished Byzantine prelate of the mentioned one hundred and forty- ninth century, mentions an Olympias six Roman and three hundred and of Thebes as an important woman twenty-seven Greek writers, most of doctor of the time of Soranus, i.e., of them now only names to us because the time of Tiberius, or somewhat their works are lost, but among them earlier, who was a Greco-Roman phy- were several medical women writers. sician of note. If we turn again to These losses were partly due to the Pliny,1 we find some of her remedies burning of the library of Augustus, for female diseases and her use of the destruction of the Temple of Peace hissop and nitre added to bull’s gall which contained among other price- on a pessary or tampon to promote less books several manuscripts of menstruation.2 She uses a purgative Galen, and the ruin of Herculaneum to cure sterility,3 and she is careful not and Pompeii with all their collections to produce prolapsus uteri by her of books and other treasures. powerful mixture of goose-grease and Unfortunately, much of Pliny’s own mallows,4 although at times “this work has been lost and it is therefore may be essential.” impossible to know whether he assign- Pliny tells us5 that Lais and Eleph- ed dates to the names of those women antis wrote on menstruation and whom we find in his abortion. Athenaeus (fl. 200 a .d .) also or not. Such common names as Lais, mentions this fact. It was said that Antiochis, Olympias, Aspasia and Cle- Elephantis was a noted abortionist opatra occur again and again and we who also wrote obscene poetry, but wonder if some Who’s Who will ever we may as well discount this and unravel the mystery of their existence. doubt that her poetry was worse than However, if we turn to the actual the common vulgarity of the time, but translations of Pliny’s texts,2 we find the Elephantis mentioned by Pliny the account of Olympias, the Theban, may have been the friend of Tiberius who wrote a valuable book of pre- and quite another person from the one scriptions containing one chapter on mentioned only by Martial and Sueto- the diseases of women, another on nius as lascivious. Soranus mentioned the prevention of abortions, and still an Elephantis who was a lecturer at another on the best ways of causing one of the medical schools in Rome, an abortion if absolutely necessary and so beautiful that she felt obliged to save the life of the mother. This to lecture behind a screen to hold the attention of her pupils. Lais was her 1 We may note here that Soranus was born contemporary, and Pliny says that in Asia Minor; he lived 98-138 a .d ., was the son of Menander and , and studied in both “vocatae sunt sapientesque ; he believed heartily that women ’ Book xxvm, Vol. v., chap. 19, p. 302. were the divinely appointed agents to care 2 Chap. 77, Vol. v, p. 360. for sick women and children. 3 Vol. v, chap. 77, p. 363. 2 Bohn Lib., Vols. iv, v, 1856. Vol. iv, 4 Vol. iv, Book xx, chap. 84, p. 285. Book xx, Chap. 84, p. 285. 5 Vol. v, Chap. 23, p. 305. elegantes,” although they may have in the teeth, dog’s milk, dried cicadas been earlier than his time.1 for colic, millipedes rolled into a ball Galen, however, seems to have and cooked in oil for earache, the

of a mad dog as a cure for its bite, menstrual fluid as a cure for malaria, and urine mixed with the white of an ostrich egg for bathing sore eyes (p. 365). It is impossible for us to excuse this treatment of Salpe’s if it is an actual fact that she used such remedies, but there are people today who use some of these disgusting animal products believing in the effi- cacy of anything vile as a last resort, the more miraculous the cure the better. She was quoted by Athenaeus, 200 a .d ., as a writer on women’s dis- eases, a poet, and the leader of a sort of dinner club the members of which met to eat and discuss interesting believed that Elephantis and Lais subjects.1 Pliny also mentions Sotira2 were the contemporaries of Soranus on the treatment of difficult menstrua- and the friends of Tiberius mentioned tion. Her book seems to be in the by Suidas and Celsus.2 library in Florence (Labbe). Pliny also mentioned Salpe, a native 1 Pliny. Natural History, Vols. iv, v. Bohn of Lemnos,3 as believing in the use of Lib. (1856). animal remedies such as testicles, Pliny’s Natural History was printed in marrow, the of a lion, the Venice in 1496, with illustrations. In an and tail of a camel, fat, dung, toasted edition of 1525 we see a man being operated earthworms, spider’s eggs for cavities upon for hemorrhoids while a fiddler is trying to divert his mind from his pain. Whether 1 Schacher and Schmidius. De Foeminis Pliny had suggested this as worth while can ex arte Claris (1738). not be proved. The Summary of foreign 2 See Galen’s De Compositione Medica- authors quoted by Pliny, Vol. v, Chap. mentorum, Lib. 1, cap. 1, Sect. x. xxviii , p. 369, is followed by a few explana- 3 Vol. v, Book xx viii , Chap. 80-81, pp. tory notes. 300, 365, 369. 2 Book xxvii i, Vol. v, Chap. 23, p. 368. It is not surprising that gossip was studied with a lover named Vettius busy with the medical women of pagan Valens, the founder of a new medical Rome at a time when morals were at sect. Of an earlier date were Livia, the lowest ebb and there was so much the wife of the great Augustus; and the that was debauched and obscene, two sisters of Augustus, Augusta and especially in the reigns of Nero and Octavia; and Antonia, Mark Antony’s Caracalla, but yet there is less of daughter by Octavia, the beautiful scandal about the women than about Clytie of the sculptors. Ruellius, who the men doctors. (150-230 published an edition of Scribonius a .d .) hurled sarcasm at them for their Largus in 1529, said that these women use of speculums, tubes, hooks, dila- were as famous, medically, as any tors, and knives, but he, a non-medical man of their own or later times, not man, could hardly have understood excepting Galen and Avicenna!1 the proper uses of such instruments. Of Messalina’s contribution we may The Roman ideas as to the viability quote her tooth paste (from Schonack): of the fetus were those of today, and “ Denn Messalina, die Gemahiin unseres if the physicians lived up to the Hip- Gottes, des Caesar, gebraucht folgendes pocratic creed they were careful not Mittel: 1 Metze in einem neuen Topfe to do any harm if they could not cure gebrannter und in Asche verwandelter their patients. They had no scruples Hirschhorner, 1 Unze chiischen Mastix- against saving the life of the mother harzes, Unze Ammonsals. (No. 60, by sacrificing the child if that was p. 32.)” ' necessary. Guglielmo Ferrero, the well known Another of the well-known medical Roman historian,2 tells us that all writers before Galen was Scribonius the women of the time of Scribonius Largus, physician to the Emperor Largus were free to come and go Claudius, and his traveling compan- as they chose. The women of the ion on the journey to his western nobility were especially well educated. colonies in France, Spain, and Bri- Livia, the wife of Augustus, had a tain, in a .d . 43. To fill in his time better education than either of her Scribonius made lists of the remedies husbands, and being philanthropically in use wherever he went, adding them inclined she was always busy for to those already in use in Rome. It is the welfare of her subjects. Her house evident that he was writing with one on the Palatine Hill is still a model of eye on the nobility’s patronage, for comfort and beauty though perhaps while quoting from thirty-five men of it was never so palatial as the homes great reputation he also quotes from of other members of the nobility. five women of the royal families of No scandals about Livia seem to have the period who had evidently studied come down to us, and she was a model medicine with the chiefs of the various of puritanical propriety, a priestess schools and enjoyed dabbling with 1 Scribonius Largus. De Compositione drugs and trying their mixtures on the Meclicamentorum (1529); also an edition members of their households. In the of 1655 by Rhodius with notes, illustrations, immediate royal circle was Messa- and glossary, and an edition translated by Wilhelm Schonack, in German, 1913, dedi- lina, wife of the Emperor Claudius. cated to Sudhoff and Meyer-Steineg. She was said by Juvenal to have been 2 Ferrero, G. The Women of the Caesars a female horror. It is thought that she (1911). (See Fig. 26.) with a surprising knowledge of priest- elaterium, honey, hyssop and pepper. craft and medicine. Julia, the daugh- Scribonius said that this was almost ter of Augustus by his first wife, who strong enough to raise the dead. became the wife of the elderly Agrip- He gives us her remedy for sciatica pa, was as scholarly as Livia, but she (p. 117), containing sweet marjoram, strayed from the path of virtue and rosemary leaves, Falernian wine and devoted her medical knowledge to the olive oil. This was to have several composition of poisons and antidotes mixings and strainings and heatings and empirical experiments. and was combined with wax and kept As for the two sisters of Augustus, in an earthen jar for future use as a Augusta and Octavia, they not only plaster. Both Augusta and Antonia studied medicine and practiced in used a variety of remedies to cure their homes, but they encouraged neuralgia. Scribonius says that he the best physicians in their work and can testify to the value of the follow- “invented many useful remedies.” ing prescription for intense pain (edi- Octavia became the first wife of Mark tion of Ruellius, p. 183): “Take lard Antony before he became enamored or goose-grease, add wine, cardamom of the beautiful Cleopatra of Egypt. seeds, rose leaves, various nards and Scribonius Largus quotes from Oc- cinnamon,” but he does not say how tavia’s book of prescriptions the fol- this mixture is to be used. They made lowing remedy (p. 32, Schonack) : a wonderful salve to soothe the pains “ mittel hat Octavia, die Schwes- of childbirth,—“quite analgesic” he ter des Augustus angewendet.” “Take says it was, composed of lard and rose barley flour, honey, vinegar mixed leaves, cypress, and wintergreen, but with salt; bake them, then pulverize mandrake and poppies seem not to with charcoal and scent with cer- have been included for this purpose. tain nard (or spikenard) flowers for They also had a famous ointment a tooth paste.” She also recommended called acopum for pain in the back to Messalina’s tooth paste, and another be used with great friction, and for made of ground glass and radish the bite of a mad dog, or for poisoned skin, and another of pellitory and food. Augusta used a remedy com- ground bone.1 posed by her teacher Triphonius (Scho- Of the remedies of Augusta and nack’s trans, p. 81), containing Antonia we have several from Scri- root, castor bean, turpentine and bonius. For ulcerated sore throat they sal ammoniac. This, they said, should gave a mixture of spikenard and be kept in glass. honey with myrrh, saffron, alum, It is therefore evident that during caraway seeds, celery and anise seeds the first and second centuries after (p. 36). Augusta’s plaster (p. 81) the birth of Christ, while the Romans against animal poisons contained orris were still worshipping their pagan root, the fat of dog’s brain, milk of gods, there was more medical activity wild figs, dog’s blood, turpentine, than ever before. Lanciani1 tells us ammonia, wax, oil, and onions, to that the women of the nobility were draw out the poison. For angina she the “most beneficent and tenacious used a mixture of ox-gall, pyrethrum, among the cohesive powers of the 1 Schelenz, H. Geschichte der Pharmazie 1 Lanciani, R. Ancient ancl Modern Rome (1904), p. 165. (1925)- nation.” They enjoyed the greatest had an intense belief in the gods social liberty and the greatest legal of Epidaurus and their miraculous and economic autonomy, but their powers. life was so full of their own interests Among other medical women of that they were blind to the warnings this period Photius cites an “honesta of the tragedies that were to come matrona” who could cure epilepsy, with the loss of their old gods and the sterility and diseases of elderly wom- persecutions of the followers of the en. Witkowski1 mentions a certain Christian preachers. Among the com- Marpessa who, while fighting in bat- mon people, moreover, there was also tle beside her husband, was taken with more independence than ever before, the pains of childbirth, helped off more opportunity for study, and there the field, and delivered by a midwife were more public medical positions to named Lasthenia, but though details be filled by women. Sarton (p. 264) are lacking about the woman, the tells us of a certain Pamphilia, men- baby, the battle, or the midwife, it is tioned by Suidas as physician in an interesting tale of the life of Nero’s family. She had studied at the time, and it recalls the current Alexandria and at Epidaurus and was gossip of the birth of Vergil, men- writing an encyclopedia of literature tioned elsewhere, for it was said that in thirty-three volumes, while Scri- his mother delivered herself in a ditch bonius and Celsus were writing on by the side of the road as she was re- medical and scientific subjects. Al- turning from work with her husband. though she may have lived at the time Several ancient writers mention a of Nero she was often confounded with famous little woman doctor from Af- an earlier Pamphile. Harless (p. 127) rica. She was called the “ muliercula,” calls her Pamphile of Epidaurus, and and sometimes “Africana.” She had says that she wrote a book on venereal studied at Alexandria in all probabil- diseases which is now lost, “De ity, and became popular because of pharmacis rebusque aliis venerem in- her remedies for pain in the eyes and citantibus,” and he adds, “her name abdomen. Scribonius Largus calls her is confused with a literary writer from an “honesta matrona,” in evident Egypt of Nero’s time” (cited by admiration. One of her prescriptions Photius). It has also been suggested quoted by him contained ivory dust that she was sometimes called Sotira for treating epilepsy, another was or the daughter of Soteris, a mid- made of crocodile’s blood and was wife of great reputation mentioned by prescribed for anemia in men, whereas Pliny as the author of a book on dove’s blood was used for women. menstruation. , however, adds She, like Messalina, used the burnt a bit of spice to this mix-up of identi- horns of a stag mixed with spices for ties by saying that Pamphile so various complaints. Galen praised this yearned to fly that she anointed her remedy, “hoc medicamento mulier- body with oil and tried in every way cula quaedam Romae ex multos to sprout wings like an owl and remediavit,” and he adds that she invoked all the gods of the air, but sold it at a high price and it was alas, she was not so far ahead of her difficult for him to obtain it. The time as to understand the mechanics 1 Witkowski, G. J. Accoucheurs et Sages- of flying, even though she may have Femmes celebres (1891). directions for compounding the pre- coeducational, even as in the time of scription require five hundred words Herophilus and Agnodice. in the German translation.1 We recall Lanciani1 gives us a vivid picture that Galen and Scribonius had also of the sanitation of Rome in this first studied at Alexandria, and another century when the city had 800,000 contemporary of theirs, Aretaeus the inhabitants, poor drinking water, and Cappadocian,1 2 had been a student clogged sewers. Burials of the poor there and perhaps the “little woman were in great public pits along with doctor” was also in their classes. the refuse and garbage of the inhabit- However that may be, she as well as ants. He calculated that one pit, un- they followed the great Hippocrates covered after two thousand years, quite faithfully, believing in a milk diet must have contained 6400 bodies, the and simple remedies carefully prepared, odor from which was still a horrible and in the humoral theory. From stench; but in the time of Augustus Aretaeus, however, comes the most the rich were cremated and their ashes peculiar belief concerning the uterus. placed in columbaria. Varro, a Sabine He had an idea that the uterus has (116-27 b .c .), in his “De re rustica,” intelligence of its own, and that it tells us that pestilences raged in Rome, moves up and down or right or left, and malaria was rampant in his time. of its own volition. He also thought He thought that these diseases came that the brain is the seat of the sensa- from the marshy districts where “in- tion, the blood the food of the body sects prosper but are so infinitesimal and transmitter of heat, the liver the that no can see them source of the blood and white bile, or detect their presence.” Therefore, the spleen the strainer of the blood where there was so much sickness and manufacturer of black bile, and we see the need for medical women the lungs sponges without feeling or as well as of men, and we are not great use. Scribonius, on the other surprised to find such really great hand, concerned himself not so much women as a second Aspasia, and a with anatomy and physiology as with Cleopatra and a new Metrodora, who drugs, and his book became the first were working as physicians and writ- dispensatory. In it he describes 242 ing books on medicine which were plants, 36 minerals, and 27 animal used and quoted for more than a products, all more or less employed thousand years. Of them we shall in his own time. This, then, gives learn more a little later, meanwhile us a glimpse of the Alexandrian running over the names of other school, which, like the others, was women doctors mentioned by their contemporaries. 1 See Schonack’s ed. of Scribonius, No. Of the women named by Galen 122, p. 61. 2 Cordell, E. F. Aretaeus the Cappadocian. there are Favilla and Origenia, whose Johns Hopkins Hosp. Bull., 20: 371, 1909. remedies for hemoptysis and diarrhea It is worth noting that though Aretaeus was he praised; and Eugerasia who had from the Alexandrian school and was living a good remedy for nephritis which in Rome while Galen was working there contained squills and bryonia, white neither mentions the other in any remaining pepper, cedar berries, iris root, myrrh volume of their work. Twenty-two volumes of Aretaeus are lost, including what he wrote and wine; Meurodacia whom he calls on gynecology. ’Lanciani, op. cit., p. 104. Maia, was perhaps a midwife, and writings were used by every school of evidently well known, and Margareta medicine. He was born in , was an army surgeon. Galen men- in Asia Minor 129 a .d ., and lived tioned several prescriptions of women until a .d . 200. His medical books were doctors which he found useful, one never seriously criticized by his fol- prepared by Samithra and another by lowers even after the Church became Xanita, the latter being like a Dover’s the dictator in politics, religion and powder in composition. We can only medicine, notwithstanding that Galen wonder what these women thought of lived and died a pagan. Vesalius and Galen and the other men doctors of Paracelsus, in the sixteenth century, their day. That they had most of the were the first to refute certain of his gynecological practice is not doubted, statements about anatomy, though for Galen failed to mention that he they were previously known to be ever had a woman as a patient, so false by all anatomists who had we may infer that in all probabil- dissected a human body, since to ity men did not practice gynecology Galen the anatomy of the pig was a any more than obstetrics, since the perfect substitute for that of man. Roman department of health em- We have seen, however, that while ployed women specialists in those Galen was alive there were many branches of medicine after the time medical sects in Rome and her prov- of Soranus. One of these specialists inces, and evidently to most of his was Metrodora, mentioned as a con- contemporaries he was not so great temporary of Soranus, who wrote a as to his own patients and successors. Greek treatise on diseases of the To the emperors of his time he was uterus which, in a manuscript of the the oracle of all medical wisdom. He twelfth century, is still in existence arranged the medical courses for the in the Laurentian library in Florence. royal schools, and advocated a seven Sarton (p. 283) says that nothing is years’ course for both men and wom- known of her except that she wrote en. His special field was the medical this treatise “which seems quite valu- school on the near the able,” and he adds that it is probably palace and . the oldest extant medical treatise He insisted upon having the students composed by a woman. It is written visit patients with an instructor. One on 263 pages of parchment divided of Galen’s colleagues at this school into 108 chapters, on diseases of the was a woman doctor named Antiochis. uterus, stomach, and kidneys, con- She was a specialist in diseases of the taining also valuable prescriptions for spleen, arthritis, sciatica, and was these diseases. Harless (p. 130) sug- concerned for the preservation of gests she may have been a man, but female beauty. Galen himself copied for no reason except that there was her prescription for a plaster to use in also a Metrodorus, a man doctor. dropsy and sciatica, another for pains The famous Galen of Mysia, physi- in the chest, and one for gout in the cian to , was con- feet. There has been some doubt as sidered second only to Hippocrates to the identity and date of this up to the seventeenth century a .d ., Antiochis of Galen’s time, for there that is, the only original worker was a woman doctor of that name in in every branch of medicine whose the time of Heraclides of Tarentum, in the first century b .c .,1 and another and other great writers. Aetius wrote to whom the town of TIos in Asia the Tetrabiblion, an encyclopedia in Minor erected a monument or a four volumes of four parts each, in tombstone once upon a time, which which this Aspasia was praised for reads as follows: “Antiochis, daugh- her great skill in podalic version, and ter of Diodatos of TIos, the Council in the diagnosis of fetal positions, and officers of the town, in apprecia- and in her treatment of dysmenor- tion of her medical ability raised this from which many young girls statue at their own expense.”21 suffered. In one chapter he quotes her Thus we see that in general it was method of managing difficult labor, no unusual thing for women doctors in another chapter he tells how she to be treated like men doctors in the provokes the death of the fetus if first two centuries a .d ., if they were necessary; another chapter is on the in good repute. treatment of suppressed menstrua- Of all the women doctors of the tion. Speaking generally, however, first two centuries a .d . who were Aspasia tries to impress her pregnant specialists in gynecology and obstet- patients with the necessity of being rics, Aspasia and Cleopatra stand extremely careful not to cause abor- out as preeminent.3 We have seen tion. They should not take chariot that in the old Greek times all the rides over rough ground, nor exercise obstetrics was in the hands of women violently, nor worry needlessly, nor as well as the treatment of women’s carry heavy loads, nor eat spicy and diseases. Occasionally in a case of indigestible foods, nor be bled, but difficult operative midwifery a strong they should be happy, live quietly, man was called to assist the midwife eat sparingly, and take mallows, let- or to make a cesarian section on tuce, barley juice and such simple a dead mother. The Greco-Roman medicines for constipation. At the time Aspasia, however, was herself equal of labor they should have hot drinks, to all emergencies. Aetius4 must have hot sitz baths, and call the obstetrix seen a copy of her great book which is early.1 lost to us, for he gives many quota- In the opening chapter of the Tetra- tions from it, and we must therefore biblion, Aetius2 discusses the ques- quote her through him. Possibly the tions of generation, pregnancy, steril- books of Aspasia to which he referred ity, labor, the anatomy of the uterus, were burned in one of the many fires 1 Petrus Baelius tells us that there were which consumed the works of Galen three Aspasias, one the wife of Pericles, another famous at the time of Artaxerxes, 1 Clericus, Hist. Med., p. 434, on the and a third immortalized by Aetius, “who authority of Asclepiades, Lib. iv. practised in old times”; and of all Aetius said, 2Lipinska, M., Histoire des femmes mede- “Sapientesque et elegantes a Xenophonte cins (1900), p. 58. vocatae sunt,” but for many reasons it seems 3 Baas. Grundriss der Geschichte der that there was a fourth Aspasia, of an uncer- Medicin (1876), p. 72. tain date, whom Aetius mistook for the 4 Aetius of Amida in Mesopotamia (527- earlier one. 565 a .d .) wrote in Greek, but his Tetrabiblion 2 Aetius Amideus. Medicae artis principes was translated into Latin and later printed post Hippocratum et Galenum (1534), trans- by order of Pope Clement vn, in 1534. It lated by Cornarius, Medicus. Dedi- fills 2000 pages in double columns. We shall cated to two physicians, Domine Jerome learn more of him in another chapter. Montuo and Hugo Solerius, and to Henry 11. menstruation, classed by Aspasia as In Chapter xxv, Aspasia gives the a purgation appearing about the fif- following advice: After the removal teenth year and continuing until the of a dead fetus the patient should fiftieth or even sixtieth year, its have soft foods, injections, purgatives, painlessness depending upon food, but avoid hot drinks. The pubes and exercise, diseases, etc. Then as to the vulva are to be anointed with oils, desire for strange foods during preg- and, if fever appears, astringent foods nancy, the nausea, and swollen feet, are to be given, and she is to be to each he gives almost a chapter of bled freely. Aetius in this chapter quotations from Aspasia. quotes other writers on the subject of In Chapter xii he quotes her as to sterility, the care and treatment of the prevention of abortion, and the the breasts, and surgical operations. necessity, as already mentioned, to For suppressed menstruation As- avoid violent exercise, hard falls, eat- pasia and Rufus1 both advise examin- ing indigestible food, constipation, and ing the patient to see if the uterine os to take laxatives such as rhubarb, is closed or can be stretched; if the lettuce, dock, mallows, etc. opening is enlarged by cutting it In Chapter xv we find the treat- must be kept open for fear of contrac- ment of difficult labor when the in- tion. Soranus of Ephesus is also troitus is narrow, by the application quoted here as advising Cleopatra’s of hot lotions to the vulva made from treatment for menorrhagia and pro- olive oil, mallows, flax seed, the oil lapsed uterus by tampons. He says from a swallow’s nest, herbs, etc. that a prolapsed uterus may have to If the placenta is adherent the pa- be removed by surgery, but this is tient must close her mouth and nos- so dangerous that a tampon and belt, trils and force it out. with rest in bed, are safer. To prevent conception wool tam- In Chapter lxxvii Aetius quotes pons are to be placed in the vagina Aspasia again as to the treatment of soaked with a preparation of herbs, malpositions of the uterus. These are pine-bark, nut-galls, myrrh, wine, etc. due, she says, to the from the (in case it is dangerous for the patient liver being so full that the weight of to become pregnant, not otherwise). the bowels and flatus push the uterus In Chapter xv iii we find how to away from its usual place. The treat- cause a necessary abortion; the thir- ment is by tampons of tar or bitumen teenth day after the date of missed or hot oil. She replaces the uterus menstruation the patient is to be with her fingers. If there is suppression hauled and pulled by several people of the urine it may be necessary to and jerked about, or she must lift make an artificial opening into the heavy burdens, using high douches bladder. An enlarged uterus is to be of strong herbs, take hot sitz baths, scarified and tamponed. Operations drink a tea of rue, artemisia, oxgall, to reduce the size of uterine tumors, eleterium, and absinthe and violet even with peritonitis seem to have no roots. She must have poultices on the terrors for these authors. Soranus abdomen. By the fourth month the softens a scirrhous tumor with salves child will be dead and labor will com- 1 was a contemporary mence. After labor the patient is to be of Soranus of Ephesus. They lived in the bled profusely. first part of the second century a .d . and teas. Archigenus, using a specu- the case of prolapsed uterus removed by lum in the vagina opens an abscess, Aspasia, and he adds that the patient squeezes out the pus, and tampons lived healthy for many years after the the uterus with hot sponges. operation, “sanas supervixisse.” In Chapter xci i Aspasia gives rules There was a famous gynecologist for treating noma of the uterus by the named Cleopatra in the second cen- milk of a horse or ass; the patient’s tury a .d . Exactly who she was, or hips are to be elevated and a tea of what her pedigree nobody knows, but iris root with absinthe and mallows is she appears to have lived in the time to be poured into the vagina. of , as did Soranus and Rufus, In Chapter xcv ii she treats hemor- and either she copied some of the rhoids of the uterus by surgical meth- materials in her book on women’s ods followed by tampons of mallows, diseases from Soranus or he copied red-earth, rose-water, the juice of from her, which is more than probable, mandragora, hemlock, etc., according for her book was very much used un- to the rules of Hippocrates, adapted til the time of Moschion, in the sixth by herself. century; after this time it was lost or Chapter c is on surgery. Aspasia confused with the work of Moschion, dissects and replaces the intestines until the end of the sixteenth century, for hernia, closes the wound with two when its remains were rescued by or three sutures, and advises against Wolff and Spach and published in a the use of wet dressings. great volume of the collected works In Chapter cn, she treats varicose of many writers on gynecology and ob- hernias by resection, separating the stetrics. Her name has been confused adherent membrane and sewing it to with that of the famous Egyptian other parts of the sack. queen, especially since she dedicated Chapter evil, on condylomata of the a book on general medicine to her vulva, shows us how Aspasia softened sister Arsinoe, and made other hints them by hot fomentations and astrin- which have been construed to refer gent salves. to her as of royal birth rather than to We can only regret that the writings herself as a gynecologist. It is said of Aspasia as a whole have not come that Galen copied many of her pre- down to us as they did to Aetius, for scriptions from a manuscript by Crito, she evidently was a highly intelligent her own having been burnt, and surgeon and obstetrician, quite the he added admiringly that she also equal of any man of her time. Aetius wrote on cosmetics and skin diseases. also must have seen the work of This is all that we know about the Cleopatra on Cosmetics, for he quotes great gynecologist except what we from her at great length in Chapter glean from the remains of her gyne- vi, of this same volume iv. He makes cology in both Greek and Latin, pub- the mistake of calling her Queen lished along with that of Moschion Cleopatra, which is perhaps natural in 1566, by Caspar Wolff of Trier, at a time when historical research was in a volume called “Harmonia Gynae- not very critical. But we are grateful ciorum.” Among its articles is this of for the records he has rescued from ob- Cleopatra, together with Moschion’s livion. Hieron Mercurialis (see Spach, and one by Theodore Priscianus, p. 298) quotes Aetius’ description of arranged in three parallel columns. Of the edition of this gynecology of her identity, confounding her with published by Israel Spach, in 1597, the earlier Queen of Egypt, and with H. A. Kelly says,1 “Spach’s volume a wizard of a later date. Petronius is very valuable in that it has pre- added one more item to the problem served many works now lost.” Spach, by supposing her to have been a himself, in the introduction says he courtesan. Finally, Tiraquellus, Fabri- wishes he could have done more jus- cius, and others suppose that this tice to Cleopatra, but evidently he Cleopatra was a very real physician published everything of hers that he and noted gynecologist who quoted could find. , whose work is somewhat freely the ideas of Soranus printed along with hers for compari- though not his words. Tiraquellus son, says that she wrote this book as a mentions a Codex in the Montfau- help to her daughter, Theodata, partly con library, “Cleopatrae Gynaeciorum from her own experience and partly Iibri iv, a Sorano collecti” (73, no. 15), from earlier Greek and Latin writers. and Piero Giacosa found fragments Priscian himself was the court phy- of her book in the Bib. Angelica, the sician to the emperor Theodosius in National library at Turin, in which 400 a .d . He tells us also that there was the dedication to her “ filia caris- were two medical women named Cleo- sima Theodata,” and the signature patra in the time of Galen, one a “Cleopatra, Arsinoe’s sister.” It would writer on cosmetics, the other a be interesting here to discuss what gynecologist, but we may judge from Wolff and Spach have published of the testimony of other women writers this historic document, but in a word that the two Cleopatras were one we may say that in its teachings it because in those days most women does not differ materially from the doctors were interested in improving work of Aspasia or Soranus, and that the looks of their patients and treated Moschion successfully elaborated it skin diseases as an aid to curing them with his own comments. These trea- in other ways. It was Wolff who tises of Aspasia and Cleopatra, how- first “harmonized” the writings of ever, whether anonymously or not, Moschion and Cleopatra by adding were used by midwives for centuries, comments of Priscian who was evi- and served as a basis for many other dently an admirer of women doctors, for later books on gynecology and he dedicated his own books to certain of obstetrics. his contemporaries who were medical One evidence of the existence and women. Harless (pp. 123-127) quotes popularity of women doctors in all from Reinesius and Merklin and Fabri- ages is the legends on their tombstones. cius concerning this Cleopatra. They This is as true in the Roman Colonies frankly have no opinion on the subject as it was in Greece. Some of these 1 Kelly, H. A. Johns Hopkins Hosp. Bull., gentle reminders were erected by 2: 18, 1891. Kelly says that Spachius was patients to their doctors, others are born in 1550, studied medicine at Tubingen, from husbands to exemplary wives was professor at Strassburg, and died in who were medical women, and others 1610. His great book contains nothing of have merely a name followed by the his own but it includes many valuable books which are now exceedingly rare in the original Christian refrain, in pace. form, and it is of great importance to the In the “Corpus Inscriptionum Lati- student of history. narum,” Lanciani found the names of hundreds of physicians, both men and this medical woman. Another1 is women, belonging to the great families. from Urbino, Deis Manib. Juliae Q. L. He mentions Julia Pia, Minnia, Teren- Sabinae Medicae. Q. Julius Atmeius conjugi bene merenti. Another, Forella T. L. Melamona Medica a Mammis (from a collection by Walch). From Nimes in southern France2 comes this, Flaviae Hedones Medicae Ex T. The following comes from the of the Trevi,3 in Rome: Minucia C. L. Aste Medica. Also this4 is from Rome, to a priestess doctor: Secunda Livillaes Medica, Ti. Claudius Cae- saris. L. Celer. Aedituus A. . In the “Corpus”5 collected by J. K. Bailie (1846), we find (Vol. 11, p. 94, cxix) one in Greek to Casilontis, a medical woman (Sonatotheke Kasi- tia, Venulaia, for example, “who Iontos Trines). In Gruter there are attended women in confinement or several epitaphs to nurses, such as other diseases.” He says (p. 29) that this one: Cassia L. L. Zmytna, nutrix, these medicinae were, as a rule, eman- v. a . xxix. (Gruter p. dclx , no. 2); cipated slaves who had practiced in and this from a nurse to her little private families and become apothe- patient: D. M. S. Emilii. Nisi Vixit. caries or surgeons in their old age, Mensib. xi, Fecit Valeria Hygia. Nu- although some of them were imposters. trix. Gruter also gives several epitaphs Among the inscriptions1 that may to obstetrices, such as this: Antoniae. have dated from Greco-Roman times Aug. L. Thalassae, Obstetric. (No. 5, we take the following: Sallustia Q. L. p. dcl xxx vi .) And another (p. dcli i, Merita; Marcia L. Agrippinae Opste- no. 10) from Rome: Sex Pompeius trix; Julia Liberta , Minucia Sex. L. Daphnis Gram Chloe. Pom- Medica, which may be translated, peiae Appi. Obst., and this: Atia Julia, a Sabine woman, the freed slave Dynamis Obst. And (no. 4) found at of Minucia, a doctor, erected this Tibur: Mariae. C. et Suavitate L. monument. There is another2 which Agrepinae. Obstetrici. There is still reads, Helpis Liviae ad Valetudinem; another (d .c . xxxvi , no. 6): Sallustia, another3 is, Secunda Livillae S. 1 Quoted by Scribonius Largus, and also Medica; another4 from Verona reads, Gruter, p. dcx xxv i. C. Cornelius Meliboeus, sibi et Sentiae. 2 Gruter. Vol. 1, p. cccxii . Elidi Meclicae Contubernali, (his com- 3 Gruter. Vol. 1, p. cxxxvi. panion). It is said that Lucretius joked 4 Gruter. Vol. 1, p. ccc xii . 5 See also Bailie, J. K. Fasciculus Inscrip- about the splendid purple robes of tionem Graecarum (1842-1849). 1 Gruterius, Janus. Inscriptiones Antiquae See also Henzen, Wilhelm, et Rossi, J. B., (I7°7). Inscriptiones Urbis Romae, Latinae (1876- 2 Spohr. Miscel. antiq. erudit. 89). 3 Quoted by Le Clerc and Jeanne Chauvin. And Hubner. Inscript. Hisp. Lat. (1869). 4 Quoted both by Gruter and Rhodius, Also Nunn, H. P. V., Christian Inscriptions “an elegant monument to a woman doctor.” (1920). Q. L. Imeria Obstetrix, Sallustius Q. L. for a purely psychic effect. These Artemidorus Arescusa, Fecit. lists were copied and, what is worse, It must be noted that none of these used by physicians for sixteen hun- epitaphs come from Christian tombs, dred years. We shudder today at the and many of them are difficult to remedies praised by Pliny, the spider’s interpret because of the lavish use eggs, dog’s milk, dried cicadas, mil- of periods and abbreviations, but they Iipeds rolled into pills, animal’s dung, are sufficient to show that in the and others equally filthy and useless, Greco-Roman period there were many but at the same time we are more women doctors as well as nurses and or less amused at the absurdity of a obstetricians, and that they had a host of these so-called remedies. With good standing in their communities a pill of reseda, or mignonette, for even though they may not have example, the patient must spit three written encyclopedias of all knowl- times and say “Reseda, allay this edge, or, if they did their works are disease. Knowest thou not what chick lost. Many books of Plinv, and the hath torn up these roots? Let it have first five books of Ptolemy are also nor head nor feet.”1 To cure catarrh, lost, and, worse still, many spurious tie two fingers together for a while. books concocted by imposters have To heal a sore, take the roots of as- been attributed to great authors. phodel, hang them up in smoke to Therefore we must be as content as dry and the sore will be healed. To possible with the work of Aspasia, cure tooth ache, dig up a root of erige- Metrodora and Cleopatra, and with ron, spit into the hole, touch the the epitaphs on the tombstones. tooth with the root, spit again, re- Before closing this chapter on the place the root in the hole and the Greco-Roman medical period in Rome pain will vanish. To beget a black- and the Colonies we should make a eyed baby, eat a rat. For easy par- hasty review of the medical treatment, turition, let the husband or lover the hospitals, and the schools in the tie his belt around the patient and early centuries immediately after the then quickly remove it. The baby will taking of Corinth by the Romans, be born speedily. Diseases of the 146 b .c . We have seen that there uterus will be healed by wearing the were several medical sects, each with milk-tooth of a child on a bracelet. its schools and teachers, culminating The tongue of an eagle, worn as an in the great school of Galen, which amulet, cures cough. For styes on the in one form or another, but always eye, cut off the heads of a few flies based on Hippocrates, lasted for hun- and rub the eyelids with their bodies. dreds of years. We can almost imagine For pain in the bowels wash the feet Nero fiddling a tune to the names of and then drink the water. A few little the drugs mentioned by Dioscorides, bugs found in the body of a spider, if so mellifluous do they sound, bella- bound to the flesh of an over-fecund donna, helleborus, aconitum, woman, will prevent her conceiving sigillata, and many others. Pliny and for a year. To keep the hair from Dioscorides have given us lists of falling out impale fifteen frogs on more than six hundred plants used in bulrushes, etc. It is a relief to know medicine along with many disgusting 1 Thorndike, L. Magic and Experimental and loathsome animal remedies given Science. Vol. 1, p. 23. that Galen rejected many of these bedbugs wrapped in skin and swal- remedies of Pliny such, for example, as lowed are supposed to cure malaria, this: frog’s blood rubbed over plucked and roast grasshoppers are “good for” other diseases. It is not to be supposed that the women doctors rather than men were singled out as using such unscientific medicines for Lais was the only one according to Pliny who used the animal products praised widely by Musa and his school. Thus we have seen that women doctors taught in the medical schools, cared for the patients at the dis- pensaries, performed operations, and were the only obstetricians. Horace said that “their rewards were good, though gained at the price of fatigue,” and we may add, of near oblivion. They had slaves to roll their bandages, and copy their notes (if they followed Hippocrates in keeping case records), to mix their pastes and poultices, and brew their herbs. If these women doctors were employed in private families as slaves or freed-women they were valued highly, and if as slaves they were sold they brought the high- est prices in the market, even sixty pieces of gold. It was their duty to care for the children in the orphan asylums, one of which in the time of eyebrows will prevent the hair from Tiberius or Trajan had five thousand growing again, and a bath of viper’s waifs. And they had charge of the blood will remove hair from the arm- women in the private hospitals on the pits, but Pliny told his somewhat great estates such as those of the skeptical nephew that these remedies emperors (76-138 a .d .), and must be good, for he had consulted Antoninus Pius (86-161 a .d .), and two thousand books and one hun- Marcus Aurelius (121-180 a .d .), all dred reliable authors for them. Prob- of whom built very comfortable and ably Dioscorides had done the same sanitary out-of-door hospital rooms for his six volumes on . for their guests, their servants, and But it is interesting to note that some themselves. Celsus complained that of these old remedies are still used by these private hospitals were better civilized people today. Worm oil and than those for the general public who cobwebs and urine and dung are could not be properly cared for at “medicine” to many foreigners in home, and Lanciani says that the America, while to the Siamese seven cooks of Augustus fared better when ill than many of the patricians. There- that much of the work of the medical fore, since there was no science in profession is not man’s work, and medicine we may believe that their consequently the majority of its men practical and educated common sense members can with difficulty find in- made women doctors of more value in spiration in their daily round. He sickness than was possible in the case adds further, “Unconsciously women of such compilers as Pliny, and Dios- possess that sense for the future which corides, or of Musa with his fads, or is the essence of the emotion of human Celsus with his literary writings, or of betterment.” And thus women lose the men practitioners whom Martial their own identity in their professional and Juvenal mocked, or of the trans- life unless they publish some new and lators of Hippocrates like Eros or startling discovery, but invention and Erotian, the freed-man of Julia, her- discovery are not common feminine self a student of medicine.1 qualities: hence, since we take the In comparison with the medical word of Pliny and Scribonius and women of today there may have been Soranus and Galen as to the value of as many women writers in proportion individual men doctors in Rome and to their numbers as now. Women, her Colonies, we may also take their with their multifarious duties, seldom word as to the women doctors of their write medical books unless they have own and previous years with the something new to say or have a gift assurance that in every Country the for literary work. They are not often pre-Christian women doctors were as reduced to occupy their leisure by well educated and as useful as men to copying the writings of others even the populations. though they may add a few case Accordingly, in view of the prepara- records of their own with which to kill tion which women had had in Egypt, time at a medical meeting. It is their Greece, and Rome for the practice of everyday work that counts in the medicine, surgery, pediatrics, and ob- world. Sir Aucland Geddes2 has said stetrics, it is not surprising that under 1 For references in connection with these the new religion of Christianity with statements see the following books: Walsh, J. its great bent toward social service The second Galen, Med. Life, Sept., 1930. and self- women were quite Pater, W. Marius the Epicurean (1885), pp. 168-174. Cumston, C. G. Introduction to the ready to come forward with help for (1926), p. 180. the sick and for the building of 2 Geddes, Sir A. Social reconstruction and hospitals, the preparation of medicines, the medical profession. Contributions to and the general duties of well trained Medical and Biological Research dedicated to Sir William Osler. N. Y., Hoeber, 1919, physicians. p. 78. (To Be Continued)