obstetrician

AGNODIKE: THE FIRST MIDWIFE/OBSTETRICIAN

Maurine Withers

Maurine

Withers is a retired psychiatric

social worker,

presently

doing research

and free-lance

writing.

She received the

M.S.S.

degree from Smith College,

Northampton,

MA, and

from the University

the B.A.

degree

of Iowa.

This much we know from extensive research about the first midwife/ obstetrician: Her name was Agnodike (or Hagnodike, or the latinized Agnodice) and she was an Athenian midwife. She lived in the third century BC, at a time when no women or slaves could study or practice medicine. On the other hand, males, who could attend medical school and be called obstetricians, could not by law or custom attend a female. Although Hippocrates (460-370 BC) was enormously successful in removing superstitions and in placing medicine on a scientific basis, he wrote little on the subject of obstetrics. He appears to have known no other method of delivery than by the presentation of the child’s head. If any other part was presented he advised such part be turned “by shaking the mother, or making her jump repeatedly, or by rolling her on the bed. If this did not

Address correspondence to: Maurine Withers, 821 Larkin Avenue, Elgin, IIlinois 60120.

succeed, to destroy the child piecemeal.” l There is no historical data as to Agnodike’s age when she dared to do what no woman in history had done before. Because of her daring, her desire for medical knowledge, and her obvious intelligence (and hopefully her rejection of the Hippocratic method of obstetrics), Agnodike cut off her hair, assumed male attire, and in this disguise attended the lectures of the famous physician of the third century BC, Hierophilus. Hierophilus was a native of Chalcedon, but his medical school was in Alexandria, Egypt. In his time, Egypt was more advanced than Greece in medicine and Hierophilus was allowed to dissect cadavers in the classrooms or outdoor arenas before his students. He investigated the eye, the brain, and organs of reproduction. Agnodike successfully completed the course and was qualified to be called an obstetrician. Hierophilus was the first medical teacher recorded to have a woman pupil2 That “pupil” was, of course, Agnodike. There are two descriptions of Agnodike’s return to her practice in Athens. The first version is that when she returned with the shortened hair, the women thought she was a man and it was some time before she could establish herself as a woman.’ The second version is described by a writer of the second century AD

4 Copyright 8 1979 by the American College of Nurse-Midwives

whose name was Hyginus. He wrote in Latin about this remarkable woman. He writes that Agnodike did have trouble identifying herself as a woman to her patients, and that she did so by revealing her body to them. She then developed a good reputation as an obstetrician. This aroused the rivalry of the male physicians who continued to believe Agnodike was a male. They complained that she was “leading the women astray.” She was accused before the Athenian High Court and Council of Areopagus where she revealed her sex by disrobing. This further aroused the vexations of the physicians and they insisted on proceeding with the trial. The testimonials of the leading Athenian women of the day procured her acquittal. Following this, the law against women practicing medicine was abrogated and freeborn women were allowed to study and practice medicine. It seems that Hierophilus, hearing about the stir one of his pupils had made in Athens, was motivated to write the first anatomy textbook for midwives. It was the first known to history.

REFERENCES 1. American Edition of the British Encyclopedia. PhiIadeIphia, 1818 2. Oxford Classical Dictionary. 2nd ed. S.V. Hierophilus, p 510

Journal of Nurse-Midwifery

l

Vol. 24, No. 3, May/June

1979