An Epitome of the History of MedicinePark, Roswell
History
An Epitome of the History of Medicine
Park, Roswell
Medicine -- History
Certain other female physicians of this period are mentioned, notably
Abella, who, in spite of the modesty that is supposed to hedge about
her sex, produced in Latin hexameter a work entitled _De Natura Seminis
Hominis_. Mercuriolus, in the fifteenth century, produced treatises
on the cure of wounds, pestilent fevers, and on the nails. The most
celebrated of all, however, appears to have been Calenda, who lived
during the reign of that notorious profligate, John II, of Naples
(1414-1435), and who was particularly distinguished for her personal
attractions. She graduated with great honor from the school at Salernum,
and soon after, in 1423, married a nobleman of the court, which
perhaps accounts for the fact that she never exercised the privilege
of authorship. A little later, Marguerite, of Sicily or Naples, also a
Salernian graduate, acquired an extended professional reputation, and
was licensed to-practice by Ladislaus, King of Poland.
Daremberg{081} informs us that there were numerous female physicians
at Salernum, much sought after because of their talents, and, moreover,
highly esteemed by the professors of the school, who freely quoted the
writings of their fair pupils and contemporaries; further, that they
employed ointments in paralyses; fumigations, vapors, and antimony for
coughs; and lotions of aloe and rose-water for swellings of the face;
they combined scientific knowledge with facetious playfulness in a
manner peculiar to the sex, in that they tendered unsuspecting beaux
bouquets of roses doctored with powdered euphorbium, and hugely enjoyed
the forced sternutations of their victims.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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