276 L WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



her white hands, and used such skillful surgery that, by 

 the grace of God, who loveth all true lovers, the shoulder 

 came back to its place. Then she plucked flowers and 

 fresh grasses and green leafage, and bound them tightly 

 about the setting with the hem torn from her shift, and 

 he was altogether healed." 



And in the mediaeval Latin poem, Waltharius, written 

 by a German monk, Ekkehard, reference is made to a 

 sanguinary contest in which one of the combatants falls to 

 the earth seriously wounded. Seeing this, Alpharides, in 

 a loud voice, summons a young girl, who timidly comes for- 

 ward and dresses the unfortunate man's wound. 1 



Still more to our purpose is a passage from the famous 

 epic poem, Tristan and Isolde, written by Godfrey of Stras- 

 lurg, in which Isolde, accompanied by her mother and 

 cousin, is represented as administering restoratives to 

 Tristan, who had fallen exhausted after his combat with 

 the dragon. It shows that women, in accompanying an 

 army to the field of battle, always went provided with 

 bandages and medicaments for dressing wounds and frac- 

 tured limbs. Similarly Angelica, in Orlando Furioso, and 

 Ermina, in Jerusalem Delivered, are portrayed as surgeons 

 with deftness of hand and leeches with rare knowledge and 

 skiU. 



The frequent introduction of women doctors into the 

 poems and romances of the Middle Ages would of itself, 

 if other evidence were wanting, suffice to show what an 

 important role women played in medicine and surgery at 

 a time when, in many parts of Europe, women were far 

 better educated and far more cultured than men "when 

 the knights and barons of France and Germany were in- 

 clined to look upon reading and writing as unmanly and 

 almost degrading accomplishments, fit only for priests or 



i Haec inter timidam revocat clamore puellam Alpharides, veniens 

 quse saucia quaeque ligavit. 



Ekkehardi Primi Waltharius, Berlin, 1873. 



