F for Fabiola: Female Scientists Before Our Time

St. Fabiola - painting/copy

Jacques Henner

In the mid-First century, the Jewish sect and early Christians felt called to care for the sick and infirm. Those in the Greek and Roman religions were apparently not as charitable. It was therefore not uncommon for priests to be physicians, and for women in the church to serve as nurses and more. Hospitals grew and medical knowledge was preserved by the church as a result.


One such nurse (and physician), Fabiola, established a hospital in Rome for the poor around the year 400. It was the first Christian public hospital in western Europe. Saint Jerome (church father, theologian and historian) wrote that Fabiola “assembled all the sick from the streets and highways" and "personally tended the unhappy and impoverished victims of hunger and disease... washed the pus from sores that others could not even behold."

Fabiola had been born into a patrician Roman family of noble rank and wealth, but life didn’t go well for her in early adulthood. After divorcing her first husband (accordingly, a “vicious life”) and marrying a second time, she lost favor with the church.


Upon the death of both husbands, however, she did penance and was granted full communion and reentry into the church by the pope. She then spent time in a convent with nuns and devoted the rest of her life serving the poor and suffering, and helping the church financially. It’s not clear when she was made a Catholic saint by the church. She died around 399 AD.        


 


Source:
https://www.kateriirondequoit.org/resources/saints-alive/fabiola-fursey/st-fabiola-benefactress/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Fabiola; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_health_care 

Sharon M. Himsl

Writer/Author. Blogging since 2011. 
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