[202] "Mulier antea permitteret se mori, quam secreta infirmitatis sui homini revelare propter honestatem sexus muliebris et propter verecundiam quam revelando pateretur." _Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis_, Tom. II, p. 264, Paris, 1891. [203] It may interest the reader to know that the first two women to get the doctorate in the Paris School of Medicine were Miss Elizabeth Garret, an English woman, and Miss Mary Putnam, an American. The first woman permitted to practice in the Paris hospitals was likewise an American, Miss Augusta Klumpke, of San Francisco. [204] "Possunt et vir et foemina medici esse." Cf. Chiappelli, _Medicina negli Ultimi Tre Secoli del Medio Evo_, Milan, 1885. [205] Quoted in _Woman's Work and Woman's Culture_, p. 87, Josephine E. Butler, London, 1869. Dom Gasquet in his _English Monastic Life_, p. 175, tells us that in the Wiltshire convents "the young maids learned needlework, the art of confectionery, surgery--for anciently there were no apothecaries or surgeons; the gentlewomen did cure their poor neighbors--physic, drawing, etc." [206] The first woman to receive the doctorate of medicine in Germany was Frau Dorothea Christin Erxleben. Hers, however, was a wholly exceptional case, and required the intervention of no less a personage than Frederick the Great. In 1754, Frau Erxleben, who had made a thorough course of humanities under her father, presented herself before the faculty of the University of Halle, where she passed an oral examination in Latin which lasted two hours. So impressed were the examiners by her knowledge and eloquence that they did not hesitate to adjudge her worthy of the coveted degree, which was accorded her by virtue of a royal edict. Her reception of the doctorate was made the occasion of a most enthusiastic demonstration in her honor. Felicitations poured in upon her from all quarters in both prose and verse. One of them, in lapidary style, runs as follows: "Stupete nova litteraria, In Italia nonnumquam, In Germania nunquam Visa vel audita At quo rarius eo carius." This, freely translated, adverts to the fact that an event, which before had been witnessed only in Italy, was then being celebrated in Germany for the first time, and was, for that very reason, specially deserving of commemoration. [207] "Nemo masculus aut foemina, seu Christianus vel Judaeus, nisi Magister vel Licentiatus in Medicina foret, auderet humano corpori mederi in physica vel in chyrurgia." Marini, _Archiatri Pontifici_, Tom. I, p. 199, Roma, 1784.