1881.] Early Practice of Medicine by Women. 63 
never to have held any public position, being naturally of a 
retiring disposition, and moreover exceedingly devoted to the 
order of St. Benedict. After acquiring a European reputa- 
tion she died at the comparatively early age of 38 (1684). 
The beginning of the following century witnessed the 
birth of one of the most gifted women the world has ever 
seen. Laura Caterina Bassi was born at Bologna, October 
31, 1711. She was the daughter of a distinguished lawyer 
and litterateur , and at a tender age manifested extraordinary 
precocity, being able while still a child to translate fluently 
most difficult Latin and Greek. Encouraged by her father, 
she pursued her studies under the guidance of eminent 
masters ; she learned physiology and medicine with the 
erudite physician Gaetano Tacconi, mathematics with Man- 
fredi, and natural philosophy with the disciples of Gassendi, 
and she astonished these profound philosophers by her 
talents. Laura Bassi studied for the pure love of know- 
ledge, and had no ambition to seek public honours, but, to 
gratify the pardonable pride of a father as well as the 
earnest desire of her instructors, she consented to support a 
philosophical thesis before a learned audience of professors. 
This event took place on the 17th of April, 1732, before she 
had reached the age of 21 years. The occasion was made 
one of festivity by the whole city, who turned out to do her 
honour ; the assemblage was presided over by two cardinals 
— Lambertini, afterward Pope Benedict XIV., and Grimaldi. 
According to custom her thesis was opposed by seven 
learned men ; to these she replied in elegant Latin with 
great success and amid the applause of the distinguished 
audience. A month later the degree of DoCtor was con- 
ferred upon her, and she was honoured by a position in the 
Faculty of Philosophy. The Senate subsequently bestowed 
upon her the chair of Physics, and commemorated the event 
by striking a medal which bore her own portrait. She held 
the professorship twenty-eight years with marked success, 
paying particular attention to mathematics and physics, also 
to belles-lettres. Several academies of learning elected her 
to membership. In 1738 she was married to J. J. Veratti, 
a physician, and became in the course of time the mother of 
twelve children. A learned French litterateur who visited 
Bologna in her day thus describes her appearance : — 
“Laura Bassi has a countenance slightly marked with 
small-pox, but of a sweet and modest expression ; her black 
eyes are sparkling, yet tranquil, and she is serious and com- 
posed in demeanour without affedtation or vanity. Her 
memory is tenacious, her judgment sound, and her 
