Women Healers of the World by Holly Bellebuono

Author:Holly Bellebuono
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Helios Press
Published: 2013-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

It remains unclear if the Salernitan women were popular healers and midwives, or if they included a corps of respected and educated physicians, or even if they included Trota or any of her students. Likewise, it is unclear if these women were stripped of their titles by male historians or if they were simply celebrated as lay healers by either the general populace, by the university, or both. Later, Trota was affectionately called Magistra Mulier Sapiens, Wise Woman Teacher, and even centuries after her death, she was credited with great wisdom by historians and poets, including Geoffrey Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales.9

Based on the texts, we know Trota’s medical expertise included the wide and prevalent use of herbs, though unlike her near-contemporary Hildegard von Bingham of Germany, Trota seldom used prayers, astrology, or incantations. She functioned less as a prophet and more as a hands-on physician and clinician and seldom refers to religious dogma at all. She dealt with the health problems of both men and women, treating swelling of the penis, hemorrhoids, intestinal problems, wandering womb, bladder and urinary problems, skin issues, cancer, incontinence, dysentery, gout, and more. Her dispensary included common herbs such as aloe, watercress, catmint, nutmeg, marsh mallow, wormwood, pennyroyal, camphor, wild rocket, elecampane, bistort, rue, sage, bilberry, nettle, mugwort, eggwhites, frankincense, mastic, and vinegar, as well as herbs and materials less than fashionable today such as worms, plaster of Paris, bacon, and fresh eels. What’s more, her treatments unabashedly call for herbs and elements we consider quite noxious today, such as pitch, henbane, black nightshade, quicksilver (mercury), lead, arsenic, and powder of natron.10

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