60 Early Practice of Medicine by Women. [February, 
the talented wife of Pericles, renowned as “ a model of 
female loveliness,” was doubtless too involved in affairs of 
state to undertake the absorbing cares of the medical pro- 
fession. Cleopatra, the accomplished and luxurious Queen 
of Egypt, of whom so many marvels are related, is named 
among those women possessed of medical skill ; she is re- 
ported to have compounded cosmetics, and to have written 
on the art of preserving beauty ; but this statement is pro- 
bably no more worthy of credence than that of the infatu- 
ated alchemists of the Middle Ages, who would persuade us 
that Cleopatra was the fortunate possessor of the philoso- 
pher’s stone and of the universal solvent. In proof of the 
former statement they point to her personal attractions, un- 
changed by increasing years, and to her immense wealth ; 
in proof of the latter they rely with confidence on the well- 
known fable of the solution of the costly pearl at the 
extravagant banquet to Marc Antony. 
In a Roman lady named Fabiola we find an early prede- 
cessor of Florence Nightingale. She was of the illustrious 
house of Fabius, and was celebrated in the fourth century 
for piety and charity. She is to be held in grateful remem- 
brance as the founder of hospitals in Italy, and she is said 
to have personally nursed the sick at Ostia. The establish- 
ment of hospitals is commonly credited to the Emperor 
Julian, 362 A. D., with whom Fabiola was contemporary; 
perhaps she took an aCtive part in the humane movement, 
and held a position analogous to that of lady manager in 
modern times.* 
Half a century later lived a woman justly distinguished 
for combining in one person a high degree of female loveli- 
ness, womanly virtue, and intellectual strength : though not 
occupied with the art of healing, we cannot pass in silence 
the accomplished Hypatia. Born at Alexandria in the latter 
part of the fourth century, the daughter of Theon, an emi- 
nent mathematician and philosopher, she soon excelled her 
father in these branches of learning. After profiting by 
profound studies under celebrated masters at Athens and 
Alexandria, she publicly taught philosophy at both these 
centres of culture. Gibbon writes of her — “ In the bloom 
of beauty and in the maturity of wisdom, the modest maid 
refused her lovers and instructed her disciples.” On Hypatia’s 
inhuman murder, at the instigation of the jealous Cyril and 
his fanatical followers, it is not here necessary to dwell. 
* Celsus, who wrote in the reign of Augustus (A.D. 1), mentions large hos- 
pitals where patients were treated with specific medicines. (Milligan’s Ed., 
p. 14.) Seneca also refers to them as “ valetudinaria.” 
