EARLY PRACTICE OF MEDICINE BY WOMEN. 195 



drugs and cosmetics, and in the practice of medicine among persons of 

 both sexes : such were Abella, author of two medical poems ; Costanza 

 Calenda, the talented and beautiful daughter of a skillful physician, 

 under whose instructions she attained to a doctor's degree ; Mercuriade, 

 author of several treatises ; Rebecca Guarna, Adelmota Maltraversa, 

 and Marguerite of Naples, who obtained royal authority for practicing 

 the medical art. (Beaugrand, in "Diet. Encyc. Sci. Medicales.") 



The ancient and honorable universities of Italy were, we believe, 

 the first to recognize the capacity of women to give instruction of a 

 high character. The University of Bologna, founded in 1116, was at- 

 tended in the year 1250 by ten thousand students, engaged m the study 

 of jurisprudence, of philosophy, and of medicine. " Here was first 

 taught the anatomy of the human frame, the mysteries of galvanic 

 electricity, and later the circulation of the blood." Here, too, were 

 the earliest successful experiments in admitting women to occupy pro- 

 fessorial chairs, for a long line of female professors taught in many 

 departments of learning.* 



As early as the thirteenth century two women were numbered 

 among the eminent professors of the University of Bologna, Accorsa 

 Accorso and Bettisia Gozzadini, the former held the chair of Philoso- 

 phy, the latter that of Jurisprudence. In the fourteenth century the 

 lovely and learned Novella d' Andrea, daughter of a distinguished law- 

 yer, often took her father's place in the professorial chair, and instruct- 

 ed his students in law. Of Novella it is reported that she was so 

 beautiful that she lectured behind a curtain, " lest, if her charms were 

 seen, the students should let their young eyes wander over her exquisite 

 features and quite forget their jurisprudence." The rival University 

 of Padua, founded in 1228, had also its female representatives. Of 

 these the most distinguished was Elena Lucrezia Cornaro. This in- 

 teresting woman was born at Venice, June 5, 1646, and at a very early 

 age exhibited an extraordinary capacity for acquiring languages. She 

 was familiar with French, Spanish, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, besides 

 her native Italian, and had some acquaintance with Arabic. While 

 endowed by nature with poetical and musical talents, she possessed at 

 the same time great perseverance and capacity for serious studies, and 

 discoursed eloquently on abstruse topics in philosophy, mathematics, 

 astronomy, and theology. At the age of thirty-two, the University 

 of Padua conferred upon her the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 

 Cornaro seems never to have held any public position, being naturally 

 of a retiring disposition, and moreover exceedingly devoted to the 

 order of St. Benedict. After acquiring a European reputation, she 

 died at the comparatively early age of thirty-eight (1684). 



The beginning of the following century witnessed the birth of one 



* According to Madame Villari, whose papers on the " Learned Women of Bologna " 

 furnish us with many of the succeeding data, there is to the present day no law prevent- 

 ing women from graduating at Italian universities or taking professorial positions. 



