Urgent question: female surgeons in the Roman period?

[Marcus Mummius]

Salve,

I have an urgent question. Where most surgeons and doctors in the Roman period men or women? Is there evidence that women in the Roman period ever executed this profession.

Vale,

[Publius Nonius Severus]

Salve Marce!

The only role at all that I am aware of women in ancient Roman medicine were as midwives. I will continue to look but I doubt there will be much more and would most likely only involve medicine for other women. Good luck!

Vale!

[Kevin J. Aschenmeier]

Hi.
Not that it is directly relevant to the question, but do not forget about woman as providers of drugs. This could range from herbalists to whatever. Homer, in the Odyssey, even refers to Helen as "panpharmacon". Or however you would transliterate the word. She is described as having all drugs.

Kevin

[Arahne]

Homer describes completely different society from that of roman period. And which roman period are we talking about?

[Susanna]

We have evidence from gravestones for:

- nutrices
- obstetrix
- medicae

so there have been female doctors.

[Publius Nonius Severus]

Nice find Susanna, a laudis for you!

Here is some additional material on the subject: Lower Class Women in the Roman Economy by Susan Treggiari. In the notes of this paper there are references to women serving in medical roles in CIL. A very interesting topic really. I have never really found too much on the role of working women in Rome before so this is very eye-opening.

-Severus

[Susanna]

About female jobs in Emperor´s time:

Lindner, R.,
Frau und Beruf in der frühen römischen Kaiserzeit,
in: Bibel und Kirche 57(3/2002), S. 153-157.

and:

http://www.lateinforum.de/romfra.htm

for literature.

[Ti Cl Nero]

Saluete,
we have CIL II 497 (Merida) , CIL X 3980 (Capua) and CIL VI 9477 (Rome), all funerary inscriptions about midwives ( mentioning those women as such).
Soranus, a greek phisician in early II century a.D. , wrote a treatise about gynaecology which was translated into Latin in V century by Celius Aurelianus.
According to Gourevitch-Charlier ("Les femmes dans la Rome antique", 2001), in this treatise it is explained that in antiquity women medicae (as Susanna suggested) were there in order to avoid that men could take care of this kind of deseaes (Gyn. II, 1, 12-13).
By the way, we know that actually men took care of womanly deseases as well.
Anyway, as has been said earlier in this topic, I think we have no relevant evidence of women in other medical contexts than those mentioned so far.
Valete.

[Marcus Mummius]

About female jobs in Emperor´s time:

Lindner, R.,
Frau und Beruf in der frühen römischen Kaiserzeit,
in: Bibel und Kirche 57(3/2002), S. 153-157.

and:

http://www.lateinforum.de/romfra.htm

for literature.

Thanks everyone for the information!

Susanna, there seem to be a lot of interesting links on that lateinforum but they are almost all not working...

[Martin Moser]

As was said above, there can be no doubt that there were female doctors at the time and, according to epigraphic evidence geographically very widespread, too. Numerically they were however only a minority compared to their male collegues and many will indeed have confined their work to female diseases.

A few more references:

Eichenauer, M. Untersuchungen zur Arbeitswelt der Frau in der römischen Antike. Bern 1988.

Jackson, Ralph. Doctors and diseases in the Roman Empire. London 1988 also writes about women and medicine (p.86 ff)

Krug, Antje. Heilkunst und Heilkult. Medizin in der Antike. München 1993 (p.195f)

[Ti Cl Nero]

[...] geographically very widespread, too. Numerically they were however only a minority compared to their male collegues and many will indeed have confined their work to female diseases.

I totally agree, even because we should probably also remember that thinking in terms of specialized doctors (at least to the same degree as they are nowadays) may be misleading.
There were, of course, a few categories of specialised doctors (mainly chirurgi, ocularii, auricularii), particularly since I century a.D., but they were a minority.
Most of the doctors were "general" doctors, and, if I remember correctly, one did not need any particular permission in order to call himself "doctor" and to work as such.
We should probably consider women mentioned in these sources mainly as experienced midwives (this is recurring) whose knowledge often could cover gynaecology and sometimes, why not, something more - without us needing or having to expect too often official designations in the sources stating so.

A couple more references:

- Nutton, "Roman medicine: tradition, confontation, assimilation" in ANRW II,37,1,1993 pp43 ff.

- Nutton, "Roman oculists" in "Epigraphica" 34, 1972, pp 25 ff.

- Le Gall, "Mètiers de femmens au CIL", in "Melanges M.Durry", Paris 1970 pp.123 ff. (which is mentioned in the article previously linked by severus)

Valete

[Medusa Gladiatrix]

Andrea Rottloff mentions in her book "Lebenbilder römischer Frauen" the following about female physicians:

Generally the term "medicus" was not as strictly reglemented as it is nowadays the "physician" therefore there could have been female quack doctors as well. All female doctors were free born women and not slaves.

An inscription from Capua states a student of medicine named Scantia Redempta who died at the age of 22. The inscription says "incomparabilissima femina, antistes disciplinae in medicina"

It seems like that female doctors were not restricted to gynecology only, an inscription from Mérida, Spain mentions a Iulia Saturnina as medica optima which sounds like that she knew more than just midwifery.

A gravestone from Metz, France bears the inscription "...ini*fil*medica" meaning "daughter of -inus, physician".

Rottloff refers to Ernst Künzl who believes that a certain grave in Spain is that of a female surgeon due to the gravegoods of medical instruments, but also of typical female ones like fibula, armring and glas beads.

In Cologne is a grave from 3rd century which contained also medical instruments but also hairpins, and silver plates with magical texts.

Sometimes even the biography of a female physician is known, e.g. that of Aemilia Hilaria, the aunts of the latter author of the Mosella, Ausonius. She used to hate her female body an acted in curing the sick like a man.

[Ti Cl Nero]

Extremely interesting.
Probably midwifery was a most commong starting point for "medicae", who sometimes could extend their own knowledge beyond.
One of the 3 CIL inscriptions I mentioned earlier (i haven't the reference at hand right now, but I am sure that it is CIL II 497 from Merida, certainly the same one you mentioned here), along with the inscription shows the depiction of a woman taking care of a newborn, which may suggest the main field of action (though not necessarily the only one) of this medica.

Vale

[Martin Moser]

Andrea Rottloff mentions in her book "Lebenbilder römischer Frauen" the following about female physicians:

Generally the term "medicus" was not as strictly reglemented as it is nowadays the "physician" therefore there could have been female quack doctors as well. All female doctors were free born women and not slaves.

And how would she prove this? :-) ) We know that slaves were educated as doctors in order to serve as the "family physician" and that some of the doctors were freedmen (who may have learned their trade while still being slaves), so why should this have been different for women? Or does she mean to say that we dno't know of any inscriptions etc. of the like?

More on slaves as doctors:

Kudlien, Fridolf: Die Stellung des Arztes in der römischen Gesellschaft. Freigeborene Römer, Eingebürgerte, Peregrine, Sklaven, Freigelassene als Ärzte. 1986. Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei, Band 18. ISBN 3-515-04698-4.