270 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



and who, like her husband and teacher, was distinguished 

 for her attainments in medicine. The names of many 

 others occur in the pages of Hippocrates, Galen and Pliny ; 

 and frequent references are made to the works and pre- 

 scriptions of women doctors who enjoyed more than ordi- 

 nary celebrity during their time. Of these female prac- 

 titioners many confined their practice to the diseases of 

 women and children, while others excelled in surgery and 

 pharmacy, as well as in general medical practice. 



Among the medical women whom antiquity especially 

 honored, particularly during the Greco-Roman period, were 

 Origenia, Aspasia not the famous wife of Pericles and 

 Cleopatra, who was not, however, as is often asserted, the 

 ill-fated queen of Egypt. Likewise deserving of special 

 mention was Metradora, of whom there is still preserved in 

 Florence a manuscript work on the diseases of women, 1 

 and Antiochis, to whom her admiring countrymen erected 

 a statue bearing the following inscription: "Antiochis, 

 daughter of Diodotos of Tlos ; the council and the commune 

 of the city of Tlos, in appreciation of her medical ability, 

 erected at their own expense this statue in her honor. ' ' 



Pliny, the naturalist, felicitates the Romans on having 

 been for nearly six hundred years free from the brood of 

 doctors. These he does not hesitate to berate roundly. His 

 statement regarding the non-existence of physicians, it 

 must be observed, is somewhat exaggerated. It is true that 

 during the first five centuries there were no professional 

 doctors who lived entirely on their practice. There were, 

 however, many men who had by long experience gained an 



i Charles Daremberg, who, at the time of his death in 1872, was 

 professor of the history of medicine in the Faculty of Medicine in 

 Paris, had the intention of publishing this work ILepl rtav ywaixalw 

 iraQv. On the Diseases of Women but his premature death pre- 

 vented him from executing his project. It is to be hoped that 

 some one else, interested in woman's medical work, may at an 

 early date give this production to the public with an appropriate 

 commentary. 



