EARLY PRACTICE OF MEDICINE BY WOMEN. 199 



Troppau, Catliarina Tissheim, Helena Aldegunde, and Frau Erxleben 

 are deserving passing notice. The last mentioned was one of the most 

 successful female practitioners of the last centuiy. Her maiden name 

 was Dorothea Leporin, but she is best known as Frau Erxleben. Frau- 

 lein Leporin pursued her medical studies at the University of Halle, 

 and obtained a diploma in 1734. She settled in the little town of 

 Quedlinburg, at the foot of the Hartz Mountains, became the wife of the 

 rector of the Church of St. Nicholas in the same place, industriously- 

 practiced her profession, and became eminent for her skill and learn- 

 ing. Her son, J. C. P. Erxleben, inherited from his mother a love of 

 scientific pursuits and became a distinguished naturalist and professor 

 in the University of Gottingen. 



In England, Anna Wolley and Elizabeth of Kent were occupied 

 with the preparation of drugs as early as the seventeenth century, and 

 both published works on medical subjects. 



In this hasty and superficial sketch of the history of the early 

 practice of medicine by women we would not be true to the facts if 

 we omitted mention of certain ignorant and vulgar women who as- 

 sumed medical knowledge and medical skill to impose upon a too 

 credulous public. That avaricious women, fond of notoriety and care- 

 less of their reputation, should imitate the methods adopted in every 

 age by unprincipled men, is not surprising^ though it may be mortify- 

 ing. To this class belonged Louise Bourgeois, nurse to Marie de' 

 Medici, the Queen of Henry IV of France ; though an ignorant char- 

 latan, she acquired extraordinary influence over her royal patroness, 

 and her career abounds in curious, eventful episodes. She was the 

 author of several medical treatises on the diseases of women, one of 

 which was published at Paris in 1617. 



A century later another female practitioner flourished, of whom 

 women have no reason to be proud. In the year 1738 Mrs. Joanna 

 Stephens proclaimed in London that she had discovered a sovereign 

 remedy for a painful disease. Notwithstanding her gross ignorance 

 and vulgar demeanor, she secured a large circle of patients from among 

 the upper and wealthy classes, and, after enriching herself by enor- 

 mous fees drawn from their credulity, she proposed to make her medi- 

 cal discovery public in consideration of the modest sum of twenty-five 

 thousand dollars^ A subscription was started for this pui-pose and 

 enthusiastically taken up ; the clergy, lords, and ladies, with an inex- 

 plicable infatuation, hastened to add their names to the list of sub- 

 scribers. Failing, however, to raise so large a sum of money, Mrs. Ste- 

 phens's friends obtained a grant of the desired amount from Parlia- 

 ment. The certificate testifying to the "Utility, Efficacy, and Dis- 

 solving Power of the Medicines," bears the date March 5, 1739, and is 

 signed by twenty justices. These dearly purchased remedies were 

 three in number, " a Powder, a Decoction, and Pills." The powder 

 consisted of calcined egg-shells and snails ; the decoction was a dis- 



