[Women and medical skill--historic view]

By the Banal edict of 28 June 1903, while the country was part of the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy, women physicians in Croatia were granted permission to carry out medical practice. In the memory of that occasion a historical overview of the women's role in medical science and practice is presented. The evidence of women's medical skills dates back to 2500 BC in Ancient Egypt. The 11th and 12th centuries saw first women gain access to medical schools in Europe. Women doctors practiced mainly gynaecology, obstetrics, cosmetics, skin and eye diseases. It took another seven centuries for them to be treated as men's equals as far as medical training and permission to work were concerned. In the 18th and 19th centuries the number of female physicians greatly increased in Europe, USA, and Canada. In Croatia the first woman medical doctor was Milica Sviglin Cavov, who graduated from the Medical School in Zürich in 1893, but was not allowed to work in the home country. The first woman to practice medicine in Croatia was Karola Maier Milobar in 1906. The first woman to have graduated from the Medical School in Zagreb, capital of Croatia, following its opening in 1917, was Kornelija Sertic The paper concludes with a view of the present-day role of women in medical practice, education and science.