But the most important documents bearing on women physicians, not only in the city of Rome but also in Italy, Gaul and the Iberian peninsula, are the large body of epigraphic monuments which have recently been brought to light, and which prove beyond all doubt that women were not only obstetricians, but that they were successful practitioners in the entire field of medical art. Thus a funeral tablet found in Portugal tells of a woman who was a most excellent physician--_medica optima_--while another describes the deceased not only as a woman incomparable for her virtues, but also as a mistress of medical science, _antistes disciplinae in medicina fuit_. The Greek word for _medica_--_iatromaia_--occasionally found in some of the inscriptions, seems to refer specially to women of Greek origin or birth. This is particularly true of a monument erected to one Valiae, who is designated as _Kalista iatromaia_--the best doctor.[184] Among the many women who became converts to Christianity during the early ages of the church a goodly number were physicians. Unfortunately, our information respecting these votaries of the healing art is not as complete as we could wish. One of the most noted of them is St. Theodosia, whose name is given in the Roman martyrology for the twenty-ninth of May. She was the mother of the martyr, St. Procopius, and was distinguished for her knowledge of medicine and surgery, both of which she practiced in Rome with the most signal success. She died a heroic death by the sword during the persecution of Diocletian. Another woman who was as eminent for her knowledge of medicine as for her holiness of life was St. Nicerata, who lived in Constantinople during the reign of the emperor Arcadius. She is said to have cured St. John Chrysostom of an affection of the stomach from which he was a sufferer. To the Roman lady Fabiola, remarkable as the daughter of one of the most illustrious patrician families of Rome, but more remarkable for her sanctity and her boundless charity toward the poor, was due the erection of the first hospital--a noble structure which she founded in Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, which was then the port of entry to the capital of the Roman empire. Here the noble matron received the poor and suffering from all parts, and did everything in her power to afford them succor in their wants and infirmities. It is difficult for us now, when hospitals and charitable institutions of all kinds are so common, to understand what an innovation Fabiola's unheard-of institution was considered by her contemporaries. For her method of treating the needy and the suffering was as different from that which had hitherto obtained as were the debasing lessons of heathendom from the elevating precepts of the Gospels.