Medical Matriarchs: The First Female Physicians

I just read a great article on three female Western medical physicians. Anandibai Joshi, Keiko Okami, and Sabat Islambouli eventually became among the first licensed female doctors in their respective countries: India, Japan and Syria. The picture above is so beautiful. It was due to the university they attended, run by Quakers, that these ladies were able to obtain their education.

The picture of awesome.

It made me want to find out who, if history knows, was the first actual female physician in recorded history. While women played so many roles in medicine as healers, I wanted to know when the term physician was first used in regards to a female healer. So I dragged out a couple of old history of medicine books I have and found two that I found interesting.

First, the term physician is problematic, as the etymology suggests:

early 13c., fisicien "a healer, a medical practitioner," from Old French fisiciien "physician, doctor, sage" (12c., Modern French physicien means "physicist"), from fisique "art of healing," from Latin physica "natural science" Distinguished from surgeon from c.1400. The ph- spelling attested from late 14c

To use the term in the ancient world, then, is based on the translation and their understanding of what a physician would be in that culture. To many, it has to be the first documented, societal accepted (example; licensed), and formally trained woman. The female doctors of Egypt fit this description. Being a doctor in Ancient Egypt was a big deal. It was a mix of spiritual practice, various healing methods, study and hard work. It was also open to both upper class men and women. They studied as apprentices to older physicians.

Memphis and Saqqara - a resting place of an awesome woman.

Merit Ptah is believed by scholars to be the first physician ever named in history. Her name means "beloved of the God Ptah". Ptah was the god of creation, arts and fertility, so if this god was her namesake, she had a powerful ally. She lived sometime in 2700 BCE during the Old Kingdom in Egypt. All we know about Merit Ptah is from her tomb, found near Memphis in the huge burial ground of Saqqara. On her tomb, her son - a priest- wrote that she was the chief physician of the women. An impact crater on Venus is named after her, giving her even more immortality. We'll remember her long after what's their names of the cover of People this week.

Merit Ptah likeness in her sarcophagus - doctor's bag not shown.

Another probable first physician was Peseshet (ca. 2500). We only know about this female physician because there's a stela at Giza in the tomb of her son, Akhethetep, a high official. It says that says she was the overseer of doctors. She was probably a physician in her own right as well as a supervisor and administrator of an entire body of female physicians. At the time, many women worked at the medical school at Sais.

In her son's tomb, a possible picture of his mom: wonder if she had to beg for funding?

So why in this day and age do we care who the first women physicians are? The reason is that we need to celebrate anyone who bucks the norm. Most societies in the world, before and now, try to limit women's roles by denying them access to higher education, careers, and voting, using the excuse that they are just not capable or it's not womanly. Clearly these women stand out as arguments against that type of thinking, and we need to remember and honour that.

Book References I used and recommended:

Nunn, John F. Ancient Egyptian Medicine. University of Oklahoma Press: 2002.

Allen, James P. The Art of Medicine in Ancient Egypt. Metropolitan Museum of Art: 2005

A Blog With A Purpose? A Organ with meaning?

I just had my gallbladder reluctantly removed from my body so things have been a bit slow here at historyminion. It's weird how one little vestigial organ removal can decimate my bank account and my brain power all in the same week.

While I've been waiting to heal up, I decided to stick to schedules and features so people will know what the week will bring to their eyeballs courtesy of their inter-webiness viewing. Mondays I will muse on news reports with historical significance. Wednesdays I'll answer a strange history question from you, my reading public. If I have no questions, no blog! Fridays are Forgotten Stories Day, where I look at historical, world changing events that were front page news then, and everyone forgot about now.

You'd remember the history of the Seven Years War if it was this cute.

Now, back to my gallbladder.

Well, all of our gallbladders use to be viewed as being much more important than we view it now. The Roman anatomist Galen (200 CE) who made the liver the principal organ of the human body, not the brain or the heart. "The liver is the source of the veins and the principal instrument of sanguification," he observed in On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body. This means the liver's two buddies - the gall bladder and spleen - were two crucial subsidiary organs of the liver.  All three organs worked together to produce and store three of the four humors of the body:  blood (liver), yellow bile (gall bladder) and black bile (spleen).  Three-quarters of the substances which established the balance of a healthy body could be found in this region. 

Our organs as drawn in the middle ages look more like root vegs to me.

While the liver may have been the most importance organ to observe and describe in this sector of the body, the gall bladder and spleen also provided interesting material to contemplate. Humoral theory (where the body had four humours that affected our systems completely) suggested that each had a profound effect on the emotions. The gall bladder regulated the emotions by being a repository for gall.  "Its substance is slender," wrote 16th century physician Berengario, "because it does not digest anything and hard so that it may resist the sharpness of the gall." 

As the decline of the theory of humours int he 18th century, and medical sciences looked deeper into the functions of the gallbladder, gall stones were identified as causing pain and trouble for other organs, especially the tied to it pancreas. The first removals of stones and the gallbladder were recorded in the 1700s, but very few people survived. It was in the 1880s when the first successful Cholecystectomy or gallbladder removal - the person lived - were done in England and America.

What do you mean you can live without me?

Some cultures still place great emphasis on you keeping your gall inside you. In the Chinese language, the gallbladder is associated with courage and other related idioms including "a body completely [of] gall"  and "single gallbladder hero". In the ZangFu theory of Chinese medicine, the gallbladder is the centre of decision making. This puts me into a bit of trouble, as mine has now been taken out and disposes of. An excuse finally to act like a nut!

 For more on the history of removing your gallbladder, see the History of Gallbladder Surgery. Enjoy.