58 Early Practice of Medicine by Women . [February, 
ancient Egypt, the crafty guardians of superstition sedu- 
lously concealed their superior knowledge from an ignorant 
and credulous people, and especially from women. Yet the 
story of the birth of Moses shows that female gynecologists 
were not unknown to the Egyptians. 
At a later period the Greeks thought to add dignity to the 
practice of medicine by forbidding it to slaves and (for- 
sooth !) to women. During the Middle Ages, when every 
branch of Science was more or less dishonoured by degrading 
superstitions, we find women, as well as men, yielding to 
their influence and exercising the double calling of sorceress 
and healer of the sick ; nor has the intelligence of the com- 
mon people even in the nineteenth century reached such a 
height as to render the business of medical clairvoyant 
nugatory and profitless. 
The invention of medicine was almost universally attri- 
buted by the ancients to the gods, and it is a curious fact 
that in both Egyptian and Grecian mythology we find female 
deities occupying important relations to the healing art. To 
the Egyptian deity Isis, the wife and sister of Osiris, pecu- 
liar medical skill was attributed, and a multitude of diseases 
were regarded as the effects of her anger. According to 
tradition she had given unequivocal proof of her power by 
the restoration of her son Orus to life. She was the reputed 
discoverer also of several remedies, and even as late as 
Galen the Materia Medica contained several compounds 
which bore her name : thus, in the symbolical language of 
the Egyptian priestly physicians, the vervain was called the 
“ tears of Isis.” 
According to the annals of Grecian mythology, Hygeia, 
daughter of iEsculapius, the god of medicine, was worshipped 
in the temples of Argos as the goddess of health. In art, 
Hygeia is represented as a virgin wearing an expression of 
benevolence and kindness, and holding in one hand a serpent 
which is feeding from a cup in the other. She was regarded 
as the goddess both of physical and mental health, thereby 
personifying the aphorism “ Mens sana in corpore sano.” 
The Greeks also ascribed medical power to Juno, who, under 
the name of Lucina, was held to preside over the birth of 
children ; and to Ocyroe, daughter of the Centaur Cheiron, 
who was renowned for his skill in surgery and medicine. 
The sorceresses Medea and Circe were said to make use of 
herbs in their enchantments and for the purpose of counter- 
acting the effedts of poisons. These and similar fables pro- 
bably preserve in allegoric form facts connected with the 
practice of medicine by women in the remotest antiquity. 
