Abella
Abella, often known as
Abella of Salerno or
Abella of Castellomata, was a physician in the mid fourteenth century. Abella studied and taught at the
Salerno School of Medicine. Abella is believed to have been born around 1380, but the exact time of her birth and death is unclear. Abella lectured on standard medical practices, bile, and women's health and nature at the medical school in Salerno. Abella, along with
Rebecca de Guarna, specialized in the area of
embryology. She published two treatises: De atrabile (On Black Bile) and De natura seminis humani (on the Nature of the Seminal Fluid), neither of which survive today. In
Salvatore De Renzi's nineteenth-century study of the
Salerno School of Medicine, Abella is one of four women (along with
Rebecca de Guarna,
Mercuriade, and
Constance Calenda) mentioned who were known to practice medicine, lecture on medicine, and wrote treatises. These attributes placed Abella into a group of women known as the Mulieres Salernitanae, or women of Salerno.
Provided by Wikipedia