EARLY PRACTICE OF MEDICINE BY WOMEN. 197 



models for the use of the professors in the Institute of Bologna. Anna 

 not only aided her husband, but soon surpassed him in skill, and par- 

 ticularly in that scientific knowledge upon which the success of their 

 joint labors so largely depended. About this time Giovanni Antonio 

 Galli, a skillful surgeon and Professor of Gynecology, opened a school 

 of obstetrics in his house, and, encouraged by him, Anna began to lec- 

 ture on anatomy to private classes. In these lectures she not only im- 

 parted with peculiar talent the knowledge derived from her husband, 

 but she also communicated many discoveries made by herself. So 

 great was her skill in all dissections requiring delicacy of touch and 

 minuteness of detail, and so clearly did she demonstrate both theoreti- 

 cally and practically the wonderful structure of the human body, that 

 she rapidly acquired a European reputation, and her lecture-room was 

 frequented by students of all countries. 



In 1755 Anna Manzolini became a widow, and was left with very 

 slender means of support, but her good qualities raised up friends who 

 secured for her a comfortable subsistence. Though she received tempt- 

 ing offers from other Italian universities, and even from England and 

 Russia, she preferred to remain in her native city, Bologna. Not long 

 after her husband's death she was appointed to the chair of Anatomy in 

 the Bologna Institute. 



Anna Morandi-Manzolini enjoys the distinction of having been the 

 first " to reproduce in wax such minute portions of the human body 

 as the capillary vessels and the nerves." Her collection of anatomical 

 models, still to be seen at the Institute of Science, bears silent testi- 

 mony to her remarkable skill and accurate knowledge. " Her lectures 

 w-ere delivered in the fragrant cedar hall which is one of the modern 

 sights of Bologna and in which Lelli's anatomical wooden figures sup- 

 porting the canopy over the professorial chair attract general admira- 

 tion." In the anatomical gallery of the university is to be seen her 

 portrait in wax, modeled by herself at the request of many admiring 

 friends. Anna ]\[anzolini closed a laborious and honored life in 1774, 

 at the age of fifty-eight years. 



The city of Bologna, in the middle of the eighteenth century, saw 

 three gifted women simultaneously occupying seats in the faculty of 

 its ancient university. Besides Laura Bassi and Anna Morandi-Man- 

 zolini, of whom we have briefly spoken, Maria Gaetano Agnesi was 

 equally distinguished. 



Maria Agnesi was born at Milan, March 16, 1718. At an early age 

 she manifested a remarkable facility for acquiring languages, and when 

 only twenty years old was able to discourse in French, Spanish, Ger- 

 man, Greek, and Hebrew, besides her mother-tongue. She displayed 

 marked ability also in philosophy and mathematics, and while still 

 young sustained one hundred and ninety-one theses which were after- 

 ward printed under the title " Propositiones Philosophicse." In 1748 

 Agnesi published a treatise on algebra, including the differential and 



