[204] "Possunt et vir et fœmina medici esse." Cf. Chiappelli, Medicina negli Ultimi Tre Secoli del Medio Evo, Milan, 1885.
[205] Quoted in Woman's Work and Woman's Culture, p. 87, Josephine E. Butler, London, 1869. Dom Gasquet in his English Monastic Life, p. 175, tells us that in the Wiltshire convents "the young maids learned needlework, the art of confectionery, surgery—for anciently there were no apothecaries or surgeons; the gentlewomen did cure their poor neighbors—physic, drawing, etc."
[206] The first woman to receive the doctorate of medicine in Germany was Frau Dorothea Christin Erxleben. Hers, however, was a wholly exceptional case, and required the intervention of no less a personage than Frederick the Great. In 1754, Frau Erxleben, who had made a thorough course of humanities under her father, presented herself before the faculty of the University of Halle, where she passed an oral examination in Latin which lasted two hours. So impressed were the examiners by her knowledge and eloquence that they did not hesitate to adjudge her worthy of the coveted degree, which was accorded her by virtue of a royal edict.
Her reception of the doctorate was made the occasion of a most enthusiastic demonstration in her honor. Felicitations poured in upon her from all quarters in both prose and verse. One of them, in lapidary style, runs as follows:
"Stupete nova litteraria,
In Italia nonnumquam,
In Germania nunquam
Visa vel audita
At quo rarius eo carius."
This, freely translated, adverts to the fact that an event, which before had been witnessed only in Italy, was then being celebrated in Germany for the first time, and was, for that very reason, specially deserving of commemoration.
[207] "Nemo masculus aut fœmina, seu Christianus vel Judæus, nisi Magister vel Licentiatus in Medicina foret, auderet humano corpori mederi in physica vel in chyrurgia." Marini, Archiatri Pontifici, Tom. I, p. 199, Roma, 1784.
[208] Thomas Aquinas, the Angel of the Schools, who had taught in Salerno, and was well acquainted with the leading universities of Europe, was wont to say "Quattuor sunt urbes cæteris præeminentes, Parisius in Scientiis, Salernum in Medicinis, Bononia in legibus, Aurelianis in actoribus—" there are four preëminent cities: Paris, in the sciences; Salerno, in medicine; Bologna, in law; Orleans, in actors. Op. 17. De Virtutibus et Vitiis, Cap. ult.
The mediæval poet, Galfrido, expressed the same idea in verse when he wrote:
"In morbis sanat medici virtute Salernum
Ægros: in causis Bononia legibus armat
Nudos: Parisius dispensat in artibus illos
Panes, unde cibat robustos: Aurelianis
Educat in cunis actorum lacte tenellos."