288 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



passes all understanding, is that the University of London, 

 after being empowered by royal charter to do all things 

 that could be done by any university, was legally advised 

 that it could not grant degrees to women without a fresh 

 charter, because no university had ever granted such de- 

 grees. 1 



While women were winning such laurels in Salerno in 

 every department of the healing art, their sisters north of 

 the Alps were not idle. As early as 1292 there were in 

 Paris no less than eight women doctors called miresses or 

 mediciennes whose names have come down to us, not to 

 speak of those who practiced in other parts of France. 

 There was also a certain number of women who devoted 

 themselves to surgery and called by the old Latin authors 

 of the time cyrurgicce. 



In Paris, however, conditions for studying and practic- 

 ing medicine and surgery were far from being as favorable 

 to women as they were in Salerno. As there were no 

 schools open to them for the study of these branches, they 

 had to depend entirely for such knowledge as they were 

 able to acquire on the aid they could get from practicing 

 doctors, the reading of medical books and their own experi- 

 ence. The consequence was that they were not at all so 

 well equipped for their work as were the women who 

 enjoyed all the exceptional advantages offered the students 

 at Salerno. None of them was noted for scholarship, none 

 of them was a writer of books, and only one of them 



i Universities in the Middle Ages, Vol. II, Part II, p. 712, by 

 H. Eashdall, Oxford, 1895. The most exhaustive work on the Uni- 

 versity of Salerno and its famous doctors, men and women, is a joint 

 work in five volumes entitled Collectio Salernitana; ossia Documenti 

 Inediti e Trattati di Medicina appartenenti alia scuola Salernitana, 

 raccolti e illustrati, by G. Henschel, C. Daremberg e S. Eenzi, Naples, 

 1852-59. Cf. also, Storia Documentata della Scuola Medica di Sa- 

 lerno, by S. de Eenzi, 'Naples, 1857; L'Ecole de Salerne, by C. Meaux, 

 with introduction by C. Daremberg, Paris, 1880, and Piero Giacosa's 

 Magistri Salernitani Nondum Editi, Turin, 1891. 



