Salome’s Medicinal Recipe and Jewish Women Doctors in Antiquity

This contribution discusses the appearance of an enigmatic Salome in the writings of the Greek physician Galen and the medical recipe assigned to her. First I argue that this is a historical personage, typical of the kind of women mentioned in the writings of Galen, who also provided him with medical recipes. Then I argue that, although the evidence we have in other sources as well (primarily rabbinic literature) is scant, Salome was not the only learned female Jewish physician and I will put her in context with the other women who are recorded in a similar manner.