a disreputable form of literature very popular
with the hetserae, and which, according to Pliny, found diligent readers
among the great ladies of Rome. Of all the numerous works of the
feminine doctors, only fragments and excerpts have come down to us, and
their loss is not greatly to be regretted. Yet credit is due to these
women as pioneers in female emancipation, and the most eminent of them
deserve to be rescued from oblivion.

The greatest was Aspasia--not the favorite of Pericles nor the devoted
companion of Cyrus the Younger, but the "medical" Aspasia, who was a
prominent figure in the Athens of the fourth century before the
Christian era. She attained great fame, not only in women's diseases,
but also in surgery and other branches of medicine, as may be judged
from the titles of her works, preserved by Aetius, a physician and
writer of the fifth century of our era. It seems clear from what is
known of her that the Athenian women saw nothing criminal in giving and
using abortives. Even Aristotle desired to have a law regulating the
number of children that might be borne by woman.

Antiochis, to whom Heraclides of Tarentum, one of the best physicians of
antiquity, dedicated his works, was a practising female physician in
Magna Graecia, in the third century before Christ, who devoted especial
attention to salves and plaster cures. To the great Cleopatra has been
ascribed the authorship of a work "on the medical means of preserving
beauty"; but there were probably one or more physicians of this name, as
there are various treatises ascribed to "Cleopatra." Other female
physicians, of whom we know little more than the name and the titles of
their works, are Olympias of Boeotia, Salpe, Elephantis, Sotira,
Pamphile, Myro, Spendusa, Maia, and Berenice.

Space will not suffer us to do more than call attention to many wise and
able women of Hellas who were eminent in other branches of learning. In
historical writings, Thucydides's daughter is worthy of mention, as she
is said to have composed the eighth book of her father's history of the
Peloponnesian War; Nicobule, the author of a history of Alexander the
Great, was another excellent woman writer. Plutarch gathered about him a
learned circle of women, of whom the chief was Clea, the clever matron
of Delphi, to whom he dedicated several of his works, and Eurydice, who
enjoyed his instruction. Aganice, daughter of Hegetor of Thessaly,
possessed an astonishing knowledge o