WOMEN IN MEDICINE AND SURGERY 281 



Unlike these, the hospitals presided over by nuns of the 

 type of Hildegard were splendid roomy structures with 

 large windows and abundance of light, pure air, with 

 special provisions for the privacy of the patients, and with 

 sanitary arrangements that not only precluded the dis- 

 semination of disease but which contributed materially to 

 those marvelous cures which the good people of the time 

 attributed to supernatural agencies rather than to the 

 medical knowledge and skill of the devoted nuns, 1 who 

 were the real conquerors of disease and death. 



But the inmates of the cloister were not the only women 

 who, during the Middle Ages, achieved distinction by their 

 writings on medical subjects and by their signal success in 

 the practice of the healing art. In various parts of Eu- 

 rope, but especially in Italy and France, there were at 

 this time among women, outside as well as inside con- 

 vent walls, many daughters of ^Esculapius and sisters of 

 Hygeia who stood in such high repute among their contem- 

 poraries that they received the same honors and emolu- 

 ments as were accorded to their masculine colleagues. 



This was particularly the case in Salerno, which was the 

 venerated mother of all Christian medical schools, and 

 which, for nine centuries, was universally regarded as ' ' the 

 unquestioned fountain and archetype of orthodox medi- 

 cine." Situated on the Gulf of Salerno, and laved by the 



lying on one bed. " John Howard, in his Prisons and Hospitals, 

 pp. 176-177. Warrington, 1874, tells us of two hospitals that were 

 so crowded that he had "often seen five or six patients in one bed, 

 and some of them dying. " 



It is gratifying to learn that the chief agents in changing this 

 revolting condition, due to faulty construction and management of 

 hospitals, were women. Prominent among these benefactors of hu- 

 manity were Mme. Necker, Florence Nightingale, and the wise and 

 alert superiors of the various nursing sisterhoods. 



i How like Chaucer 's prioress who 



"Was so charitable and so piteous, 

 And al was conscience and tender herte. ' ' 



