With this story of St. Hildegarde in mind, and the recall of other
educational developments among the Benedictine nuns, it is easy to
understand the developments that took place at Salerno, where monastic
influence was so prominent. Just as the medical, and above all the
surgical, traditions of Salerno found their way to Bologna at the
beginning of the thirteenth century, so also did the regulations regarding
standards in medical education, and with them medical education for women.
There are definite historical documents which show that women not only
studied but taught in the medical department of Bologna. The name of one
of them at least is very well known. She was Alessandra Giliani, and,
strange as it might appear, was one of the prosectors in anatomy of
Mondino, the founder of teaching by human dissection. According to the
"Cronaca Persicetana," quoted by Medici in his "History of the Anatomical
School at Bologna":
"She became most valuable to Mondino because she would cleanse most
skilfully the smallest vein, the arteries, all ramifications of the
vessels, without lacerating or dividing them, and to prepare them for
demonstration she would fill them with various coloured liquids,
which, after having been driven into the vessels, would harden without
destroying the vessels. Again, she would paint these same vessels to
their minute branches so perfectly, and colour them so naturally,
that, added to the wonderful explanations and teachings of the master,
they brought him great fame and credit."
This passage with its description, as coming from a woman, of a very early
anticipation of our most modern anatomical technique--injection,
hardening, and colouring, so as to imitate nature for the making of
anatomical preparations, for class and demonstration purposes--is all the
more interesting because the next great improvement in anatomical
teaching, the use of wax models of dissected specimens coloured to imitate
nature, came also from a woman, Madame Manzolini, also of Bologna.
Feminine instinct aroused women to use their inventive ability to do away
with the necessity for always recurring to the deterrent material of fresh
dissections, and yet securing such preparations as would make teaching not
less but more effective.
Some doubt has been thrown on certain details of the story of Alessandra
Giliani, but the memorial tablet erected at the time of her death in the
Hospital Church of Santa Maria de Mareto in Florence gives all the
important facts, and tells the story of the grief of her fiancé, who was
himself Mondino's other assistant. Like her, he died young also, when
there were high hopes of his ability, and there is more than the suspicion
that these two untimely deaths may have been due to dissecting wound
infections. She died "consumed by her labours," so that it may have been
phthisis; but he was taken by "a swift and lamentable death."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account