WOMEN IN MEDICINE AND SURGERY 



and with so great success that the University of Giessen in 

 1819 conferred on her the degree of doctor of obstetrics. 

 Her daughter, Carlotta, after studying obstetrics under her 

 mother, went to the University of Gottingen, where she 

 devoted herself to physiology, anatomy and pathology. 

 After passing an examination and successfully defending a 

 number of theses in the University of Giessen, she was also 

 proclaimed a doctor of obstetrics. At a later date Frau 

 Frei received a similar degree. 1 



More noted as accoucheuses and gynecologists than the 

 three distinguished women just mentioned were Mme. Marie 

 Louise La Chapelle and Mme. Marie Bovin, who, shortly 

 after the French Revolution, entered upon those wonderful 

 careers in their chosen specialties which have given them 

 so unique a place in the annals of medicine. 



Mme. La Chapelle was particularly celebrated for the 



i The first woman to receive the doctorate of medicine in Germany 

 was Frau Dorothea Christin Erxleben. Hers, however, was a wholly 

 exceptional case, and required the intervention of no less a person- 

 age than Frederick the Great. In 1754, Frau Erxleben, who had made 

 a thorough course of humanities under her father, presented her- 

 self before the faculty of the University of Halle, where she passed 

 an oral examination in Latin which lasted two hours. So impressed 

 were the examiners by her knowledge and eloquence that they did 

 not hesitate to adjudge her worthy of the coveted degree, which was 

 accorded her by virtue of a royal edict. 



Her reception of the doctorate was made the occasion of a most 

 enthusiastic demonstration in her honor. Felicitations poured in 

 upon her from all quarters in both prose and verse. One of them, 

 in lapidary style, runs as follows: 



"Stupete nova litteraria, 

 In Italia nonnumquam, 

 In Germania nunquam 

 Visa vel audita 

 At quo rarius eo carius." 



This, freely translated, adverts to the fact that an event, which be- 

 fore had been witnessed only in Italy, was then being celebrated in 

 Germany for the first time, and was, for that very reason, specially 

 deserving of commemoration. 



