It is gratifying, however, to the friends of woman's cause to learn that Mme. Curie's candidacy was defeated by only two votes. Her competitor, M. Branly, received thirty votes against the Polish woman's twenty-eight. She thus fared far better than did Mme. Pauline Savari, who aspired to the fauteuil made vacant by the death of Renan, regarding whose candidature the Academy curtly declared, "Considering that its traditions do not permit it to examine this question, the Academy passes to the order of the day." Thus, it will be seen that, in spite of the long-continued opposition to women members, the French Academy is more than likely to offer its next vacant chair to the pride and glory of Poland,—the immortal discoverer of radium and polonium.
CHAPTER VII
WOMEN IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES
It is reasonable to suppose that women, who are such lovers of nature, have always had a greater or less interest in the natural sciences, especially in botany and zoölogy; but the fact remains that the first one of their sex to write at any length on the various kingdoms of nature was that extraordinary nun of the Middle Ages, St. Hildegard, the learned abbess of the Benedictine convent of St. Rupert, at Bingen on the Rhine. Of an exceptionally versatile and inquiring mind, her range of study and acquirement was truly encyclopædic. In this respect she was the worthy forerunner of Albert the Great, the famous Doctor Universalis of Scholasticism.
Although St. Hildegard has much to say about nature in several of her works, the one of chiefest interest to us as an exposition of the natural history of her time is her treatise entitled Liber Subtilitatum Diversarum Naturarum Creaturarum. It is usually known by its more abbreviated name, Physica, and, considering the circumstances under which it was written, is, in many ways, a most remarkable production. It consists of nine books treating of minerals, plants, fishes, birds, insects and quadrupeds. The book on plants is composed of no fewer than two hundred and thirty chapters, while that on birds contains seventy-two chapters.
In reading Hildegard's descriptions of animated nature we are often reminded of Pliny's great work on natural history; but, so far as known, there is no positive evidence that the learned religieuse had any acquaintance whatever with the writings of the old Roman naturalist. Had she had, the general tenor of her work would have been quite different from what it actually is.
The mystery, then, is, what were the sources of Physica? Some have fancied that Hildegard in preparing this made use of the writings not only of Pliny and Virgil, but also of those of Macer, Constantinus Africanus, Walafrid Strabo, Isodore of Seville, and other writers who were in great vogue during the Middle Ages. The general consensus of opinion, however, of those who have carefully studied this interesting problem is that the gentle nun was not acquainted with any of the authors named, except, possibly, Isodore of Seville, whose works were all held in high esteem, especially during the period of Hildegard's greatest literary activity.
Hildegard's Physica has a special value for philologists, as well as for students of natural history, for it contains the German names of plants still used by the people of the Fatherland seven hundred years after they were penned by the painstaking abbess of St. Rupert's.[164]