WOMAN AS A PH YSICIAN. 
Illustrious Examples Drawn From History.—The Advantages of the 
Female Medical Student of To dafy Compared with those of 
her Predecessors, with SiJggestions as to their 
Proper Utilization. 
BY EUGENE F. CORDELL M D., 
Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the Woman’s Medical College of Baltimore. 
(Abstract of an Introductory Lecture delivered before the Class of the Woman's Medical College of 
Baltimore, October ist, iS8j ) 
Reprint from Maryland Medical Journal, of October 6th. 188,1. 1 
WOMAN AS A PHYSICIAN. 
wives in such a way as to indicate that many 
of them possessed cultivated minds and ex- 
tensive professional attainments. Agnodice 
was a plucky Athenian girl who conceived a 
passionate desire to acquire a knowledge of 
medicine, which the law forbade to women. 
Disguised in male attire, she attended the 
school of the great Greek anatomist—Hero- 
philus—at Alexandria (who has the honor of 
having first practiced human dissection), and 
applying herself assiduously, soon mastered 
the theory of medicine. Returning to Athens, 
she began practice, chiefly in midwifery and 
the diseases of women. She was successful, 
and soon began to monopolize the obstetric 
practice of the city. This so excited the 
jealousy of the men-physicians that they 
charged her with debauching the women 
whom she attended. She disproved this by 
revealing her sex to the judges. Her accusers 
then charged her with violating the law. This 
was more serious, and it would doubtless have 
gone hard with her had she not acquired such 
a hold upon the affections of her clients that 
the most prominent women in the city used 
their influence in her behalf. The result was 
the repeal of the law, and an order by the 
judges permitting any free woman to learn 
and practice medicine, and forbidding the men 
any longer to attend cases of confinement. 
Aspasia—not to be confounded with the mis- 
tress of Pericles—wrote upon uterine dis- 
placements and ulceration, abortion, and other 
subjects in gynecology, which are referred to 
by Aetius. 
In Rome, women had still greater latitude, 
and we find them adopting the specialties 
then in vogue—there were obstetrices, and 
adstetrices, and sagae, and iatraleptae, and un- 
guentariae, and tractatrices. Plautus, in his 
“Miles Gloriosus,” describes a midwife lament- 
ing her poor pay thus: “Turn obstetrix ex- 
postulavit mecum parum missum sibi,” and 
Terence, in “Andria,” portrays a midwife 
given to drink. Paulus ALgineta, the compiler 
of Alexandria, copies extensively from the. 
writings of Cleopatra, a Roman woman. St. 
Jerome tells of a Roman lady—Fabiola—who 
had medical charge of a hospital. Says 
Martial: 
“Percurrit agili corpus arte tractatrix, 
Manumque doctam spargit omnibus membris,” 
thus showing that massage was known and 
practised at that time. Pliny, in his “Epistles,” 
refers gratefully to the services of iatraleptae— 
friction-doctors. 
When European civilization melted away 
before the fierce attacks of the Northern bar- 
barians, all was for a tim'e black darkness. The 
little remnant of medicine found refuge among 
Illustrious Examples Drawn from His- 
tory.—The Advantages of the Female 
Medical Student of To-day Compared 
WITH THOSE OF HER PREDECESSORS, WITH 
SUGGESTIONS AS TO THEIR PROPER UTILI- 
ZATION. 
BY EUGENE F. CORDELL, M.D., 
Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the 
Woman’s Medical College of Baltimore. 
{Abstract of an Introductory Lecture delivered before the 
Class of the Woman's Medical College of Balti- 
more, Oct. jst, iSSj.) 
The Lecturer began with some words of 
greeting and wishes for the success of the 
students in the work of the ensuing session. 
The attempt to provide facilities for the medi- 
cal education of women in Baltimore, such as 
they were obtaining elsewhere, had been suc- 
cessful far beyond expectation. In the brief 
period that had elapsed since the College had 
opened its doors to students, several measures 
had been adopted tending to promote its use- 
fulness and elevate its standard; of these the 
preliminary examination deserved special men- 
tion. The policy of the College had been one 
of conciliation—but it had wisely deemed that 
the best way to conciliate men’s prejudice and 
opposition was to show that it deserved their 
esteem and confidence. 
The career upon which they were about to 
enter was not a new one for woman. From 
the earliest recorded times women have been 
engaged in the practice of medicine in some 
or all of its branches. In the very first book 
of the Old Testament—3,600 years ago—we 
find that the midwife held a distinct office. 
The courage and integrity of this class were 
illustrated by their refusal to kill the new-born 
children of the Hebrews, when ordered to do 
so by the cruel Pharaoh. To these persons 
was entrusted the exclusive charge of woman 
in her ailments, a custom that has prevailed 
among Eastern nations up to the present day. 
Among the Greeks more latitude was allowed, 
and hence the literature of that country—from 
Hippocrates down—is comparatively rich in 
treatises on diseases of women and parturition. 
Among the Greeks, too, women first assumed an 
equal rank with men as medical practitioners. 
Various examples were quoted from Homer 
in proof of this, as where the daughters of 
Arsinous dressed the wound of the warrior- 
surgeon, Machaon. Socrates boasts in the 
Dialogues of Plato: “I am the son of a 
skilful and renowned midwife—Phaenarete.” 
Moschion described the qualifications of mid- 2 
the monks in the monasteries. “The human 
mind neglected, uncultivated and depressed, 
continued in the most profound ignorance.” 
The first ray that illuminated the horizon 
came from the south of Italy and the School 
of Salernum. This school began to be known 
about the end of the seventh century, and 
reached its acme in the eleventh. It was for 
a time the medical centre of Europe, the 
“Fountain of Medicine,” as Petrarch calls it, 
supplying, but feebly in comparison, the place 
of Alexandria. In connection with the sub- 
ject of medical women, it is especially inter- 
esting because of the great privileges it per- 
mitted the sex, and the eminence which they 
acquired there. They became not only writers, 
but professors and lecturers, and old Antonio 
Mazza—“Doctor ac Civis Salernitanus”—en- 
umerates the names and writings of the most 
famous of them in his quaint quarto—“Urbis 
Salernitanae, Historia et Antiquitates, etc.” 
Instruction was given at Salernum in Greek, 
Latin, Hebrew and Saracenic, and the women 
seem to have been chiefly of the two latter 
nationalities. Among the subjects upon which 
they wrote were atrabiiis, the nature of woman, 
crises, pestilential fever, the cure of wounds, 
ointments, urines, the embryo, etc In con- 
cluding the notice, it may be of interest to add 
that the School of Salernum enjoyed exten- 
sive rights and privileges, which it transmit- 
ted to its graduates ; it obtained the distinc- 
tion of being known as the “Collegium Hip 
pocraticum.” 
Simultaneously with the School of Salernum 
flourished the Arab School, which arose out 
of the ashes of the Alexandrine. The works 
of the Greek and Latin physicians were trans- 
lated and eagerly read. Schools of medicine 
were established, and for a time the East be- 
came the home of art and science. We have 
no records of the writings of any of the Sara- 
cenic midwives during this period, although 
they had the monopoly of their department, as 
we have already said. 
About the close of the fifteenth century 
Europe began to awake from her slumber, 
and men’s minds freed themselves from the 
bonds by which they had been so long fettered. 
In Italy, liberal sentiments early prevailed as 
to the study of medicine by women. The 
University of Bologna was especially consider- 
ate to them. One of the most celebrated of its 
graduates was Madame Anna Morandi Manzo- 
lini, who married a Professor of Anatomy in 
the University, and, on his death, herself be- 
came Professor. She was famous for her 
models of the human body in wax. Few ex- 
amples of eminent women appear in other 
countries except France.* 
The Lecturer then sketched the history of 
several of the noted sagts-femmes,who by their 
lives and writings have helped to give French 
midwifery that prestige which it has always pos- 
sessed. Many of these attained their distinction 
whilst in charge of the Lying-in Department of 
the Hotel Dieu Hospital, or of the Maternity. It 
is not to be inferred that these women were 
like many of the midwives of to-day. They 
were learned women, of high scientific attain- 
ments, and their authority in matters relating 
to their department was fully accorded. 
The first woman who wrote a work on mid- 
wifery in France was Louyse Bourgeois, mid- 
wife to Marie de’ Medici, Queen of Henry IV., 
whose memory Professor Goodell has em- 
balmed by a graceful and exquisitely written 
sketch, read before the Philadelphia Co. Med. 
Society, June 5th, 1876. She was born in 
1563. She was the wife of a surgeon, who 
had been a pupil of Par6, and began hei- 
st udies with the ponderous tomes of that 
great surgeon. Her volume—“Observations 
Diuerses sur la Sterility, etc.,” is full of inter- 
esting details upon the inner court life of the 
period, interspersed with the observations of a 
shrewd midwife. This work has literary and 
historical value apart from its obstetrics, which 
was closely modeled after that of Parfe. It 
was about the beginning of the seventeenth 
century that men began to attend in cases of 
confinement in France. Commencing with 
ladies of quality, the custom gradually de- 
scended to the middle and lower classes. M. 
Honore, “that man of Paris who delivers 
women,” was one of the first men accoucheurs, 
and was an eye-sore to Louyse. Another, 
probably M. Guillemeau, the successor of 
Pare, she charges with having treated a lady of 
rank for a dropsy which was suddenly dis- 
pelled after five and a half months by the birth 
of a lusty child. She relates this case, she 
says, “to serve as a warning to those who 
undertake to treat disorders of which they 
know nothing: every-one should stick to one’s 
trade.” Some time after the physicians re- 
taliated by laving the blame of the death of 
the Duchess d’ Orleans upon a fragment of 
retained placenta, but she so conclusively 
proved that what they had been tugging away 
at with their finger-nails was but the placental 
site, that they were silenced. The work above 
referred to underwent four editions, and was 
translated into Latin, German and Dutch. 
Marie Louise Duges Lachapelle was born 
in Paris in 1769, her father being an humble 
officier de Sante, her mother midwife-in-chief 
of Hotel Dieu. At the age of twenty-three 
she married, but became a widow three years 
afterwards. The celebrated Maternite w’as es- 
tablished by her advice, and she became 
its first directress. In the school for naid- 
*An Irishwoman is credited with performing the 
Caesarian section. 3 
wives she had charge of the clinical instruc- 
tion, Prof. Baudeloque being her associate. 
The graduates of this school have been noted 
for their solid attainments and practical skill. 
Madame L. was a person of rare powers of 
observation, and perhaps had a larger obstetri- 
cal experience than any one who has ever 
lived. She died in 1822. Her writings were 
collected and published in three volumes by 
her nephew, Professor Duges, of Montpelier, 
in 1821, under the title, “The Practice of Ob- 
stetrics, or Select Memoirs and Observations 
upon the Most Important Points of the Art.” 
Contemporaneous with Lachapelle was the 
even more distinguished Madame Marie Anne 
Victoire Gillain Boivin, born 1773. She early 
obtained some knowledge of anatomy and 
midwifery in a village hospital. In 1797 she 
married, but a year afterwards found herself a 
widow with one child. Necessity thus com- 
pelled her to look out for her own support, 
and she turned her attention to medicine. She 
entered la Maternite as a sage-femme. A 
close intimacy at once sprang up between her 
and Madame Lachapelle, which was encour- 
aged by similarity of age, tastes, and mis- 
fortunes. It was through her efforts that the 
school of midwifery, founded by Chaptal 
was instituted. In 1812 appeared her first 
work—which went through four editions— 
“Memorial de l’Art des Accouchements,” in 
two volumes, 8vo., with 143 plates. She 
also wrote six other works, upon various ob- 
stetrical subjects, the last and most celebrated, 
in the composition of which Professor Duges, 
ot the Faculty of Montpelier, was associated 
with her, being entitled “Traite Pratique des 
Maladies de l’Uterus et de ses Annexes,” two 
volumes, 8vo., with atlas. She also translated 
the works of English wrriters. On the death 
of Lachapelle she was offered the charge of 
La Maternity, but declined. In 1814 the King 
of Prussia conferred upon her the order of 
civil merit; the University of Marburg 
gave her the degree of Doctor of Medicine. 
Her name was proposed before the Academie 
de Medicine, but the prejudice against the 
admission of a woman was too great, and she 
was defeated. Towards the close of her life 
she received a small annuity, w-hich was almost 
her sole support up to her death in 1841. 
Madame Boivin was the most prolific female 
medical writer who ever lived, and her writ- 
ings were all of the first order. 
The Lecturer next sketched the changes 
that have taken place in recent years in con- 
nection with the medical education of women, 
and claimed that a great revolution had been 
going on both in sentiment and in realization. 
Whilst this was partly due to the more liberal 
views of the age in which we live, it was in 
great part to be ascribed to the indomitable 
pluck and perseverance of woman herself, 
who would be content with nothing less than 
equal privileges and advantages with men. 
The Lecturer then proceeded to show that in 
many countries the doors of the Universities 
had been opened to women : this was the case 
for instance in Switzerland, Italy, France, 
Finland, Holland, Denmark, Sweeden, Aus- 
tralia, India and America. They had also 
taken diplomas in Russia, and had been ad- 
mitted, with some restrictions, to the lectures 
of some of the German and Austrian schools. 
The establishment of separate colleges for 
women had, however, done more than any- 
thing else to advance the movement, and 
seemed to solve many of the difficulties sur- 
rounding it. Public sentiment was unques- 
tionably averse, and probably always would 
be, to the indiscriminate sharing of the studies 
and duties of medical students by young per- 
sons of different sexes, and both nature and 
association offered strong grounds in support 
of this view. But this was a consideration of less 
importance at present than formerly, since the 
special schools now offer advantages not in- 
terior to those obtainable in the others. Four 
such schools are now in successful opera- 
tion in this country: that in Philadelphia, 
established 1850, that in New York, estab- 
lished 1865, the Chicago school, founded in 
1870, and this institution, now in its second 
year. 
The Lecturer then continued as follows: In 
the remarks which have preceded I have 
sought not so much to present a complete his- 
torical resume of the entire share which your 
sex have taken in the medical history of the 
past and of their work in the present, as to 
show vou what they can do, and above all to 
bring before your minds some illustrious ex- 
amples which may serve during your student- 
life both as models for your imitation and as 
incentives to your emulation. To tell what 
has been dcme is one of the best ways of show- 
ing what ought to be done. I trust that my 
recital will also not merely lead you to strive 
to equal those who have preceded you, but to 
surpass them. You have no right to content 
yourselves with equality ; for consider your 
and their relative advantages. Most of them 
had obstacles to overcome which only their 
courage and perseverance enabled them to 
surmount. Many had to contend against the 
prejudices of ignorance and bigotry. And not 
only were their means of instruction limited, 
but the actual amount of knowledge which 
was to be gained was limited also. To you on 
the other hand the freest privileges are accord- 
ed. The accumulated wisdom of two thous- 
and years is yours, and you have but to par- 
take of the feast of learning so bountifully 
spread belore you. 4 
Of the proper utilization of your advan- 
tages I hope you have already formed some 
just ideas. No one should venture upon 
any important work without some definite 
plan of action. Nevertheless a suggestion 
or two, in conclusion, from one more expe- 
rienced than yourselves, may prove of use 
to you. It is of the first importance that 
you should always bear in mind the object 
for which you have come here : that it is 
not for pleasure, or curiosity, or merely to 
while away the time. You are here for 
study—to train your minds in the principles 
and details of a great and difficult science, 
which will require the full exercise of your 
best faculties. It is a work which offers an 
ample field for the greatest human intellect. 
It then behooves you to waste no time, but 
to settle down at once to the student-life 
which is before you, and steadfastly to per- 
severe until its end. Remember that you 
are here laying the foundation of an educa- 
tion which will continue throughout your 
lives, and that the edifice will be durable 
and secure according to the depth and so- 
lidity of the base upon which it rests. In 
some respects you possess advantages over 
the other sex. You are free from many of 
the sources of distraction to which men are 
liable. It is not necessaiy for instance, to 
caution you as them against the charms of 
“Rosaline’s bright eyes, 
—her high forehead and her scarlet lip.” 
Whether there is any Adonis of the other 
sex who will occupy the mind’s eye of some 
of you to the exclusion of your books, I 
will not venture to say ; but if so, you must 
pluck the offending member, and that at 
once. If you wish to succeed in your stu- 
dies and make the most of your opportuni- 
ties, you must banish from your thoughts 
everything that comes between you and 
your legitimate work. 
Again, I would urge you to be thorough. 
Do not be satisfied with a half-performance 
of your tasks. If you do not understand a 
subject persevere with it until you do. 
Repetition is not only an aid to the memory 
but it also aids the understanding. “Learn 
not many things but much” is an old 
ad rge, which means that it is better to know 
a few things well than to get a smattering 
of many things. In your reading adopt the 
rule never to let a word pass of which you 
do not know the meaning. Hence your 
dictionary should be your constant com- 
panion. Let your thoroughness extend to 
your habits—and especially let it include 
punctuality. Industry, system, thorough- 
ness—these constitute the elements of suc- 
cess in student-life. Sic itur ad astra.