296 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



among women as well as among men; here, far from en- 

 countering jealousy and opposition in the pursuit of knowl- 

 edge or in the practice of the professions, women never 

 found aught but generous emulation and sympathetic co- 

 operation. 



For a thousand years women were welcomed into the 

 arena of learning and culture on the same footing as men. 

 In Salerno, Bologna, Padua, Pavia, they competed for the 

 same honors and were contestants for the same prizes that 

 stimulated the exertions of the sterner sex. Position and 

 emolument were the guerdons of merit and ability, and the 

 victor, whether man or woman, was equally acclaimed and 

 showered with equal honor. Women asked for no favors 

 in the intellectual arena and expected none. All they de- 

 sired were the same opportunities and the same privileges 

 as were granted the men, and these were never denied them. 

 From the time when Trotula taught in Salerno to the 

 present, when Giuseppina Catani is professor of general 

 pathology in the medical faculty of Bologna, the women of 

 Italy always had access to the universities and were at 

 liberty to follow any course of study they might elect. We 

 thus find them achieving distinction in civil and canon 

 law, in medicine, in theology even, as well as in art, sci- 

 ence, literature, philosophy and linguistics. No depart- 

 ment of knowledge had any terrors for them, and there 

 was none in which some of them did not win undying fame. 

 They held chairs of language, jurisprudence, philosophy, 

 physics, mathematics, medicine and anatomy, and filled 

 these positions with such marked ability that they com- 

 manded the admiration and applause of all who heard them. 



This is not the place to tell of the triumphs of the women 

 professors in the Italian universities, or to recount the 

 achievements of those who were honored with degrees 

 within their classic walls. Let it suffice to recall the names 

 of a few of those who won renown in medicine and sur- 



