CHAPTER VIII 



WOMEN IN MEDICINE AND SUEGEEY 



As woman was the first nurse, so was she also the first 

 practitioner of the healing art. Among savages the world 

 over it is the women, in the great majority of cases, who 

 have the care of the sick and wounded, and who, by reason 

 of their superior knowledge of simples for the cure of 

 diseases, occupy the position of doctors. In certain parts 

 of the uncivilized world there are, it is true, shamans or 

 medicine men; but these are conjurers or exorcists, who 

 profess to expel disease, or rather the evil spirits causing 

 the disease, by sorcery or incantation, rather than physi- 

 cians who essay to cure ailments or relieve suffering by the 

 use of substances which experience has showed to possess 

 remedial properties. In a word, the shaman is a kind of a 

 religious functionary who imposes on the ignorance of his 

 tribe and who holds his position by the fear he excites, and 

 not by any knowledge he possesses of the healing art. It 

 was the same, we may believe, in the early history of our 

 race women, and not men, were the first physicians; and 

 they were also most probably the first surgeons. 



According to Greek mythology, the god of the medical 

 art was J^sculapius, a male ; but his six daughters, as an- 

 tiquity beautifully expressed it, were not only goddesses 

 but were also medical mistresses artifices medici of suf- 

 fering humanity. Of these Hygiea was specially distin- 

 guished as the goddess of health, or, rather, as the con- 

 server of good health, while Panacea was invoked as the 

 restorer of health after it had been impaired or lost. 



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