WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



and Scipio and Pompey, when they triumphed over the 

 Gauls, the Sammites, Numantia and Pontus" was less than 

 that which was spontaneously accorded to Fabiola, the 

 solace of the sick and the comforter of the distressed. For 

 she had in her hospital at Ostia established a type of insti- 

 tution that was to effect more for ameliorating the con- 

 dition of suffering humanity than anything that had before 

 been dreamed of; something that was to contribute im- 

 mensely to the efforts of physicians and surgeons in mini- 

 mizing the sad ravages of wounds and disease; something 

 whose beneficent effects were to be felt through the cen- 

 turies and in every part of the world down to the wards of 

 the military hospital at Scutari, guarded by the watchful 

 eyes of Florence Nightingale, and to the leper-tenanted 

 lazarettos, blessed by the ministrations of Father Damien 

 and the Sisters of Charity, on the desolate shores of plague- 

 stricken Molokai. 



After the fall of the Roman empire and through the 

 long period of the Middle Ages, when the monasteries and 

 convents were almost the only centers of learning and cul- 

 ture for the greater part of Europe, the practice of medi- 

 cine was to a great extent in the hands of monks and nuns. 

 For every religious house was then a hospital as well as a 

 school, a place where drugs and ointments were com- 

 pounded and distributed, as well as a place where manu- 

 scripts were transcribed and illuminated. At a time when 

 there were but few professional physicians and when these 

 few were widely separated from one another, the only 

 places where the poor could always be sure to find free 

 medical treatment as well as abundant alms were those 

 sanctuaries of knowledge and charity where the love of 

 one's neighbor was never lost sight of in the love of sci- 

 ence and literature. And during this time, too, the care 

 of the sick was regarded as a duty incumbent on everyone, 

 but particularly on those devoted to the service of God in 

 religion. It was considered, above all, as a duty devolving 



