WOMEN IN MEDICINE AND SURGERY 279 



directs attention to the historical value of the book, de- 

 claring it to be "an independent German treatise, based 

 chiefly on popular experience." 



Dr. F. A. Reuss, of the University of Wiirtzburg, at the 

 conclusion of his Prolegomena to the Physica published in 

 Migne's Patrologia, expresses himself as follows regarding 

 the writings and medical knowledge of the illustrious ab- 

 bess of Bingen: "Among all the saintly religieuses who, 

 during the Middle Ages, practiced medicine or wrote trea- 

 tises on it, the first, without contradiction, is Hildegard. 

 According to the monk Theodoric, who was an eye witness, 

 she had to so high a degree the gift of healing that no sick 

 person had recourse to her without being restored to health. 

 There is among the books of this prophetic virgin a work 

 which treats of physics and medicine. Its title is De 

 Natura Nominis Elementorum Diversarumque Creatur- 

 arum, and it embodies, as the same Theodoric fully ex- 

 plains, the secrets of nature which were revealed to the 

 saint by the prophetic spirit. All who wish to write the 

 history of the medical and natural sciences should read this 

 book, in which the holy virgin, initiated into all the secrets 

 of nature which were then known, and having received 

 special assistance from above, thoroughly examines and 

 scrutinizes all that which was, until then, buried in dark- 

 ness and concealed from the eyes of mortals. It is certain 

 that Hildegard was acquainted with many things of which 

 the doctors of the Middle Ages were ignorant, and which 

 the investigators of our own age, after rediscovering them, 

 have announced as something entirely new." 1 



The life and works of St. Hildegard throw a flood of 

 light on many subjects that have long been veiled in mys- 

 tery. It explains why the convents of the later Middle 

 Ages were so famed as curative centers and why the sick 

 flocked to them for relief from far and near. It reveals 

 the real agencies employed in effecting the extraordinary 



i S. Hildegardis Opera Omnia, Ed. Migne, p. 1122, Paris, 1882. 



