enced the mass of the people that its place in the
intellectual life could be felt, there comes a period of cultural
development represented in philosophy by the Fathers of the Church, and
during which we have a series of important contributors to medical
literature. The first of these was Aetius, whose career and works are
treated more fully in the chapter on "Great Physicians in Early
Christian Times." He was followed by Alexander of Tralles, probably a
Christian, for his brother was the architect of Santa Sophia, and by
Paul of AEgina, with regard to whom we know only what is contained in his
medical writings, but whose contemporaries were nearly all Christians.
Their books are valuable to us, partly because they contain quotations
from great Greek writers on medicine, not always otherwise available,
but also because they were men who evidently knew the subject of
medicine broadly and thoroughly, made observations for themselves, and
controlled what they learned from the Greek forefathers in medicine by
their own experience. Just at the beginning of the Middle Ages, then,
under the fostering care of Christianity there is a period of
considerable importance in the history of medical literature. It is one
of the best proofs that we have not only that Christianity did not
hamper medical development, but that, directly and indirectly, by the
place that it gave to the care of the ailing in life as well as the
encouragement afforded to the intellectual life, it favored medical
study and writing.

A very interesting chapter in the story of the early Christian physician
is to be found in what we know of the existence of women physicians in
the fourth and fifth centuries. Theodosia, the mother of St. Procopius
the martyr, was, according to Carptzovius, looked upon as an excellent
physician in Rome in the early part of the fourth century. She suffered
martyrdom under Diocletian. There was also a Nicerata who practised at
Constantinople under the Emperor Arcadius. It is said that to her St.
John Chrysostom owed the cure of a serious illness. From the very
beginning Christian women acted as nurses, and deaconesses were put in
charge of hospitals. Fabiola, at Rome, is the foundress of the first
important hospital in that city. The story of these early Christian
women physicians has been touched upon in the chapter on "Medieval Women
Physicians," as an introduction to this interesting feature of
Salernitan medical education.

Du