“The son of Phœbus himself, Æsculapius, has instilled into thy mind, O Praxagorus, the knowledge of that divine art which makes care to be forgotten. He has given into thy hands the balm that cures all evils. Thou, too, hast learned from the sweet Epion what pains accompany long fevers, and the remedies to be applied to divided flesh; if mortals possessed medicines such as thine, the ferry of Charon would not be overloaded in crossing the Styx.” Notwithstanding sarcasm, in spite of epigrams and calumny, medicine has always been a source of sublime consolation to the sick and afflicted, the sufferer—rich and poor. At all ages the priest has been inclined to indulge in the practice of physic, and it was at their instigation that those nuns known as Sisters of Charity practiced medicine to a certain extent in the Middle Ages. In the twelfth century we see the nuns of the Convent of Paraclet, in Champagne, following the advice of Abelard, essaying the surgical treatment of the sick. It is true the first abbess of this nunnery was Heloise, in whose history conservative surgery is not even mentioned. The nuns who dressed wounds were called _medeciennes_ or _miresses_. Gaulthier de Conisi has left a history of their good works: “And the world wondered when it did learn That woman had found a new mission; When the doctors of Montpellier and Salern(o) Saw each nun to be a physician. A fever they knew, a pulse they could feel, And best of it all is, _they managed to heal_.” This tendency of women to care for the sick now became general. “In our ancient poets and romancers,” says Roquefort, “we often notice how young girls[5] were employed to cure certain wounds, because they were more tender-hearted and gentle-handed; as, for example, Gerard de Nevers, having been wounded, was carried into a chapel, where “a beautiful maiden took him in hand to effect a cure, and he thought so much of her that in brief space of time he commenced to mend; and was so much better that he could eat and drink; and he had such confidence in the skill of the maiden that, before a month passed, he was most perfectly cured.” As early as the sixth century, we note in the recital, _Des Temps Merovingiens_, by Augustin Thierry, that Queen Radegond, wife of Clotaire I., transformed her royal mansion into a hospital for indigent women. “One of the Queen’s pastimes was to go thither not simply to visit, but to perform all the most repulsive duties of nurse.”