History of Women in Medicine and Healthcare

In a global context, documentary sources confirm the most ancient references to women’s intellectual qualities and, in particular, to their performance in the field of health. Even in times when their education was proscribed and they were considered “animals of another species”, devoid of soul, records of everyday life showed their natural aptitude for issues related to health, sometimes being selected for the treatment of the wounded and the indigent. At all times, there have been worthy representatives of female intellectuality who have known how to impose themselves on the culture of different periods of history. Some were a direct natural product of the environment in which they lived. Others, cohabiting in a stagnant space and time, were able to gather qualities and skills and assert themselves in an unusual but recognized way among their peers. Freedom of thought combined with freedom of action were indispensable achievements for their training and consequent professional and social affirmation. Opposed to specific examples from the past is the exponential number of women that have huge success today in the fields of science and health. Chronologically, and representative of each period of universal history, different personalities are remembered in this chapter, and their existence is contextualized in an effort to perpetuate their names and their testimonies in the present and in future societies.