278 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



nent not only as a theologian but also as a writer whose 

 treatises on various branches of science are justly regarded 

 as the most important productions of the kind during the 

 Middle Ages prior to the time of Albertus Magnus. Be- 

 sides this, she not only wrote many books on materia 

 medica, on pathology, physiology and therapeutics, but, as 

 a practitioner, she gloriously sustained the best traditions 

 of her sex in both theoretical and practical medicine. 



Her work entitled Liber Simplicis Medicince, which deals 

 with what in the Saint's time was called "simples" for 

 the belief was then current that each plant or herb was or 

 provided a specific for some disease contains accounts of 

 many plants used in materia medica, as well as statements 

 of their importance in therapeutics. Her descriptions often 

 indicate an observer of exceptionally keen perception and 

 one whose knowledge of science was far in advance of her 

 epoch. The same observations may be made respecting 

 Hildegard's work, Liber Compositor Medicince, in which she 

 treats of the causes, signs and treatment of diseases. 1 



Still more remarkable, in many respects, is a treatise in 

 nine books, entitled Physica or Liber Subtilitatum Diver- 

 sarum Naturarum Creaturarum, which, among other 

 things, treats of the various elements, of plants, trees, min- 

 erals, fish, birds, quadrupeds, and of the manner in which 

 they may be of service to man. Of so great importance 

 was this book considered that several editions of it were 

 printed as early as the sixteenth century. No less an 

 authority than the late Eudolph Virchow, the founder of 

 cellular pathology, characterizes it as an early materia 

 medica, curiously complete, considering the age to which it 

 belongs." 2 And Haeser, in his history of medicine, 

 i This work was for a long time regarded as lost, but a manu- 

 script copy was recently found in Copenhagen, and it has since been 

 published by Teubner of Leipsic, under the title of Hildegard's 

 Causes et Curce. 



2 Archiv fur Pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie und fur 

 Klinische Medicin, Band 18, p. 286, Berlin. 



