Childbirth and Obstetrics in Antiquity - Women As Doctors

Women As Doctors

During the era of Classical Antiquity, women practiced as doctors, but they were by far in the minority, being confined to the traditional area of medicine for women: gynecology and obstetrics. The 2nd century CE was the beginning of the Hippocratic Corpus in ancient Greece. Greek physicians attempted to standardize medical practice. Aristotle was an important influence on later medical writers in Greece and eventually Europe. Aristotle concluded, similar to the writers of the Hippocratic Corpus, that women's physiology was fundamentally different from that of men primarily because women were physically weaker, and therefore more prone to symptoms caused in some way by weakness, such as the theory of humourism, that both men and women had several "humours" regulating their physical health, and that women had a "cooler" humour.

The traditional ancient practices of midwifery in Greece and Rome, as closely linked as they were to religious beliefs, were increasingly at odds with the male-dominated sphere of the scholarly physicians who worked as formal writers and lecturers on obstetrics and gynecology. The Hippocratic Corpus writers indicated that men were more rational than women, and that women's physiology made them susceptible to problems that would cause symptoms of irrationality. Continuing with this assumption that men were more rational, men dominated the profession of physicians, an occupation requiring rational research, and for which they believed women were not suited. Physicians studied medicine from the perspective of objective science and rejected supernatural influences on health, looking for purely physical explanations.

This did not stop women from sometimes becoming physicians, however; Agnodice was said by several ancient writers to have been a popular gynecologist who disguised herself as a man in order to practice as a physician. Philista was a popular professor of medicine who was said to have delivered lectures from behind a curtain, to prevent her beauty from distracting her students. In ancient Greece, there was also an intermediate occupation for midwives with some further medical training, known in Latin as the iatromea.

Women doctors may have offered specializations beyond gynecology and obstetrics, and in some instances they did, but in most cases there is not enough information to know how frequently women may have been able to practice medicine beyond these traditional areas for women. As obstetricians and gynecologists, they appear to have been numerous. The Law Code of Justinian presumed women doctors to be primarily obstetricians. The first medical text known to be written by a woman is by Metrodora, Concerning the Feminine Diseases of the Womb, a work in 63 chapters that was part of a series of at least two works that she authored. The earliest copy dates from between the 2nd century and the 4th century CE.

A doctor received training through an apprenticeship, often from a relative who was a physician. Receiving recognition as a physician carried civic privileges and responsibilities with it in ancient Greece and Rome, and it was usually a men's sphere. Pantheia, who was the wife of a physician, became one herself, a pattern also seen in the careers of Aurelia Alexandria Zosime and Auguste. Auguste received recognition as a chief doctor of her city, a title her husband also received. Metilia Donata was prominent enough to commission a large public building in Lyon. Anthiochis of Tlos, a doctor who was the daughter of a prominent physician, Diodotus, was recognized by the council of Tlos for her work as a doctor and had a statue of herself erected. She was also a widely discussed expert cited by Galen and others. Aspasia is quoted extensively by Aetius on gynecology.