Women in Medicine
By ANNICE JEFFREYS MYERS, M. D.
THE practice of medicine as a whole appeals strongly to women, because of their sympathy for the sick and afflicted and their innate desire to relieve such distress, while obstetrics and gynecology are the special branches that they naturally choose.
The first record with reference to a woman's practicing obstetrics is in Genesis. A midwife attended Rachel, the wife of Jacob, at the birth of her second son, Benjamin. History tells us that Rachel was in hard labor, and a midwife said: "Fear not; thou shalt have this son also." But poor Rachel died and was buried, though there is no evidence that the midwife was responsible.
Again, in the book of Exodus, it is related that the Egyptian king, who wished to deal wisely with the children of Israel lest they multiply too rapidly, gave command to the Hebrew midwives before the birth of Moses that they should destroy all male children at their birth. "But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive," giving the lame excuse that the Hebrew women were not like the Egyptian women, but were delivered before the midwives arrived. After the midwives disobeyed the king he gave his command to all his people, saying: "Every son that is born ye shall be cast in the river; every daughter ye shall save alive." That the king gave the command to the people, after the women had deceived him, would indicate that men did not practice obstetrics at that time; otherwise the king would have charged the men instead of the midwives to destroy the male children. There seemed to be no danger of "race suicide" in those -days, or the king would not have issued this decree.
I have looked into the history of the practice of medicine in ancient Egypt, as far as I have been able, in order to find out more definitely what part women took in the practice of medicine in ye olden times. Mythology ascribes to the Egyptian Isis the duty of watching over the health of the human species, and the discovery of many drugs. Hygeia, the daughter of Esculapius, and Ocyrone, the daughter of Chiron, were learned in medicine, and Esculapius is portrayed as followed by a multitude of both sexes who dispensed his benefits.
The ancients considered that women had the right to the distinction of being, above all, the guardians of health, on account of woman's nurturing and caring for the young. So highly esteemed and worshiped by the Greeks was the Goddess Hygeia that a temple was devoted to this divinity, and even in our day, when a doctor, upon receiving his degree, takes the Hippocratic oath, he not only swears by Apollo, the physician, and Esculapius, the god of medicine, but by Health and Allheal—Hygeia and Panacea.
