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healing, we can not pass in silence the accomplished Hypatia. Born 

 at Alexandria in the latter part of the fourth century, the daughter of 

 Theon, an eminent mathematician and philosopher, she soon excelled 

 her father in these branches of learning. After profiting by profound 

 studies under celebrated masters at Athens and Alexandria, she pub- 

 licly taught philosophy at both these centers of culture. Gibbon writes 

 of her, " In the bloom of beauty and in the maturity of wisdom, the 

 modest maid refused her lovers and instructed her disciples." On 

 Hypatia's inhuman murder at the instigation of the jealous Cyril and 

 his fanatical followers, it is not here necessary to dwell. 



The practice of medicine by women obtained to some extent during 

 the middle ages. Under the influence of Mohammedan rule, women 

 were placed in excessive isolation, and it is not surprising to find under 

 these circumstances that certain women were skilled in attending to 

 the requirements of their own sex. Thus Albucasis, of Cordova, one 

 of the most skillful surgeons of the twelfth century, secured the ser- 

 vices of properly instructed women for assistance in operations on 

 females in which considerations of delicacy intervened. Avicenna 

 also, writing of remedies for diseases of the eyes, mentions a collyrium 

 compounded by a woman well versed in medical science. On the 

 whole, however, the number of women instructed in medicine among 

 the Arabs was very small, owing possibly to the inferiority to which 

 women were condemned by Eastern usages. 



In Christian countries the nuns as well as the pi'iests attended to 

 the healing of the sick as an act of charity and piety. Abelard, in the 

 twelfth century, permitted the practice of surgery to those of the con- 

 vent of the Paraclete, over which Heloise presided. The most cele- 

 brated of the learned nuns was Hiidegarde (a. d. 1098-1180), abbess of 

 the convent of Rupertsberg, near Bingen on the Rhine. She compiled 

 a sort of materia medica, which comprises a variety of superstitious 

 remedies. Radegonde of France, the founder of a convent at Poitiers 

 (died 587), the pious ascetic Elizabeth of Hungary (died 1231), Hed- 

 wigia, wife of Henry the Bearded, and other women who devoted 

 themselves to the care of the sick, may be properly regarded as praise- 

 worthy exemplars of Christian benevolence rather than educated prac- 

 titioners of medicine. 



In the famous school of medicine established at Salernura by Bene- 

 dictine monks in the eleventh century, we find women taking an im- 

 portant part. Ordericus Vitalis, in his " Ecclesiastical History " (writ- 

 ten about 1130), relates that an abbot eminent in natural sciences-, and 

 especially distinguished in medicine, visited Salernum in the year 10.59 

 for the purpose of discussing medical topics, and found no one erudite 

 enough to reply to his propositions save a certain woman of great 

 learning. This woman he does not name, but she is supposed to be 

 the same as Trotula of Ruggiero, whose reputation at that period was 

 world-wide. At Salernum, women were engaged in the preparation of 



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