Rebecca Guarna ( fl. 1200), was an Italian

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

and

surgeon In modern medicine, a surgeon is a medical professional who performs surgery. Although there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon usually is also a licensed physician or received the same medical training as ...

and author. She is one of a number of female physicians known from the Middle Ages. She was one of the women known as the " ladies of Salerno". Rebecca Guarna was a member of the same Salernitan family as the famous

Romuald Guarna Romuald Guarna (between 1110 and 1120 – 1 April 1181/2) was the Archbishop of Salerno (as Romuald II) from 1153 to his death. He is remembered primarily for his ''Chronicon sive Annales'', an important historical record of his time. Life ...

, priest, physician and historian. She studied at the

University of Salerno The University of Salerno ( it, Università degli Studi di Salerno, UNISA) is a university located in Fisciano and in Baronissi, Italy. Its main campus is located in Fisciano while the Faculty of Medicine is located in Baronissi. It is organized ...

and belonged to the minority of female students of her time period. She was the author of ''De Urinis'' (on Urine), ''De febrius'' (on Fever) and ''De embrione'' (on the embryo): her treatise De Urinis treated the method of diagnosing illness by urine sample.L. Whaley:
Women and the Practice of Medical Care in Early Modern Europe, 1400-1800
'

References

Walsh JJ. 'Medieval Women Physicians' in ''Old Time Makers of Medicine: The Story of the Students and Teachers of the Sciences Related to Medicine During the Middle Ages'', ch. 8, (Fordham University Press; 1911)
Year of birth missing Year of death missing Medieval women physicians 13th-century Italian physicians 13th-century Italian women Italian medical writers Schola Medica Salernitana 13th-century women writers 13th-century Latin writers 13th-century Italian writers Medieval surgeons {{Italy-med-bio-stub

References

Further reading