Esta conmemoración nos da la oportunidad de analizar y reflexionar la evolución de la posición de la mujer en el ámbito de las Ciencias Médicas. Tomaremos al mundo occidental como base sin negar la importancia de las civilizaciones árabe y china.

Los estudiosos opinan que en los tiempos prehistóricos la mujer tenía un papel muy importante en el cuidado de la salud del grupo social, ya sea participando en las tareas del parto y el seguimiento de la salud del recién nacido como en la salud de los hombres. La familiarización con hierbas y sus efectos les daba los primeros conocimientos “farmacológicos”.

Ya en tiempos históricos se puede recoger documentación que ratifica la actuación femenina en la profesión médico/farmacéutica.

The Greek historian Xenophon refers to the existence of a law that established that the woman was responsible for her family’s health care. A few centuries later, the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar established that all women with a medical education could obtain Roman citizenship and were exempt from taxes.

An example of the quality of the work carried out by these women is the case of Metrodora, Egyptian by origin but who developed her activity in Greece (there is some inconsistency in the data of her birth, someplace in the second century of our era while those other authors take it closer dates).

Differentiating herself from other professionals, she expanded her activity beyond attending deliveries and newborns, entering the most diverse pathologies.

Considered the mother of gynecology, her knowledge has endured in the book “On the diseases and cures of women” a copy of it is kept in the Laurentian Library in Florence. It is a long book with 63 chapters. Prolific and orderly, her book is considered the first medical book written in an encyclopedic style and in alphabetical order. Difficult issues are faced with criteria that still retain aptitude today.

Throughout history it is found that those women with medical knowledge were accepted but were not recognized by titles or authority. The first academic titles of Doctor of Medicine or MD were granted by the Salerno Medical School around the 1000s, spreading throughout Europe in the following centuries.

Already in 1800, we observed the existing difficulties in obtaining the medicine’s title. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first Physician in the United States in 1849. In Argentina, Cecilia Grierson (1859 –1934) graduated on July 2, 1889, from the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires, becoming the first Argentine physician.

Women have struggled for centuries to be recognized for their talent and the contribution they can bring to the pharmaceutical industry, and significant progress has been made in the last 100 years. The pharmaceutical industry has a high management commitment to diversity and inclusion. As a result, we have seen an increase in women leaders and those in emerging positions of power in some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies.