That there were in Greece from the earliest times numerous women possessed of a high degree of medical skill is evidenced by many of the ancient writers. They were what we would call medical herbalists, and not a few of them exhibited a natural genius for determining the curative virtues of rare plants and a remarkable sagacity in preparing from them juices, infusions and soothing anodynes. Others there were who, in addition to evincing the cunning of leechcraft in the therapeutic art, were distinguished for nimble hands in treating painful lesions and festering sores, and who, when occasion required, were experts in "quickly drawing the barb from the flesh and healing the wound of the soldier." In the Odyssey special mention is made of the surpassing expertness of the Egyptian female leech, Polydamna, whose name signifies the subduer of many diseases. The land of the Nile, the poet tells us, "teems with drugs," and "There ev'ry man in skill medicinal Excels, for these are sons of Paeon all." In this favored cradle of civilization, to which Greece owed so much of its knowledge and culture, there were many women who, like Polydamna, achieved distinction in the healing art, and many, too, we have reason to think, who communicated their knowledge to their sisters in the fair land of Hellas. But not only were there in Greece women physicians like Agamede, who were noted for their general medicinal knowledge and practice, but there were also others who made a specialty of treating ailments peculiar to their own sex. This we learn from a passage in the _Hippolytus_ of Euripides, wherein the nurse of Phaedra addressed the suffering queen in the following words: "If under pains Thou labor, such as may not be revealed, To succor thee thy female friends are here. But if the other sex may know thy sufferings Let the physician try his healing art." More positive information, however, is afforded us by the ancient Roman author Hyginus, who, in writing of the Greek maiden, Agnodice, tells us how the medical profession was legalized for all the free-born women of Athens. Instead of a literal translation of Hyginus, the version of his story is given in the quaint language of one Mrs. Celleor, a noted midwife in the reign of James II.