WOMEN IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES' 235 



declares that It will always hold an important place in the 

 history of medical art and of inanimate and animate nature 

 insignis semper locus debetitur in artis medicce rerumque 

 naturalium historia. 1 



He even goes further and affirms that Hildegard was 

 familiar with numerous facts of science regarding which 

 other mediaeval writers were entirely ignorant. More than 

 this. She was acquainted with many of nature's secrets 

 which were unknown to men of science until recent times, 

 and which, on being disclosed by modern researches, have 

 been proclaimed to the world as new discoveries. 2 



One reason why St. Hildegard's writings on botany, zo- 

 ology and mineralogy are not better known is that few stu- 

 dents care to make the effort to master her voluminous 

 works. They require long and assiduous study and a 

 knowledge of her peculiarities of style and expression 

 which is acquired only after patient and persistent labor. 

 But the labor is not in vain, as is evidenced by the numer- 

 ous monographs which have appeared in recent years, es- 

 pecially in Germany, on the scientific works of this mar- 

 velous nun of the twelfth century. All things considered, 

 the Abbess of Bingen may be said to hold the same posi- 

 tion in the natural sciences of her time as was held in the 

 physical and mathematical sciences seven hundred years 

 earlier by the illustrious Hypatia of Alexandria. 



After the death of St. Hildegard, full six centuries 

 elapsed before any one of her sex again achieved distinc- 

 tion in the domain of natural science. And then, strange 



i Hildegardis Opera Omnia, p. 1122, Migne's Edition, Paris, 1882. 



2"Constat permulta S. Hildegardi nota jam fuisse, quse caeteri 

 medii aevi seriptores nescierunt, quaeque sagaces demum recentiorum 

 temporum indagatores reperierunt ac tamquam nova ventitarunt. ' ' 

 Ibid. Dr. Karl Jessen, in his thoughtful Botanik der Gegenwart und 

 Vorzeit in Culturliistorischer EntwicJcelung, p. 123, Leipzig, 1864, 

 expresses himself on the extraordinary medical knowledge of the 

 abbess of Bingen as follows: "Wer deutsche Volkarznei studieren 

 will, der studiere Hildegard und er wird Kespect davor bekommen," 



