Anna Sibylla of Gemmingen

Anna Sibylla von Gemmingen (* 1594 ; † January 1665 ) was master (magistra) of the Urspring Monastery .

Life

She was a daughter of the princely Augsburg councilor Hans Jakob von Gemmingen (1553–1622) and Barbara von Breitenlandenburg from the Steinegg line of the barons of Gemmingen . At that time the family line was ramified and the father was hardly wealthy, so that for Anna Sibylla, as for many of her siblings, there was only one spiritual career. She entered the Urspring Monastery and made her profession on July 7, 1608. She was elected prioress in 1629. On November 3, 1639 she was elected master, invested and confirmed by the Abbot of St. Georgen . She ran the monastery until December 1, 1664 (resignation) and died a few weeks later in January 1665. According to tradition, she was carried to the grave by the mayors of the two neighboring monastery towns of Hausen oU and Schmiechen and buried in the cemetery in the monastery.

Anna Sibylla contracted breast cancer in 1641 at the age of 47 . After she first sought a cure from a spa , unfortunately unsuccessfully, she turned to the Ulm city ​​doctor and surgeon Johannes Scultetus , who successfully operated on her on June 25, 1641 by removing the breast through a clear incision. The wound was closed with (herbal) medicines described in detail by Scultetus in his report. She survived the operation by 24 years and died at the age of 71.

References and comments

1. ↑ Stocker (1895) writes that she was prioress from 1629; Eberl (1978), p. 219, note 25.
2. ↑ Stocker (1895) gives no date of death. The other sources differ with regard to the exact date. So u. a. January 31st was named as the date of death, according to other sources she was buried on January 29th.
3. ↑ See Anonymous 1977; Bröer and Eckart p. 85f. u. Fig. 1 on p. 86; Scultetus 1679, part 2, pp. 93-98 ("The XLIV. Observation. From an open cancerous damage in the breast, which was cut away with a knife").

literature

• Anonymous, From the abbess's belly. In Sexualmedizin (Wiesbaden: Verlag Medical Tribune) Vol. 6, Issue 2 (1977), p. 137.
• Bröer, R. and WU Eckart, The Treatment of Breast Cancer: Aspects of Therapy History from Antiquity to the 20th Century. In Manfred Kaufmann, Heinrich Maas, Dieter Alt and Carl-Rudolf Schmidt (eds.), A Century of Endocrine Therapy of Breast Cancer: From Beatson to Today . Berlin, Heidelberg a. a .: Springer-Verlag, 2013, pp. 81–93.
• Eberl, Immo, History of the Benedictine Monastery of Urspring near Schelklingen 1127–1806: External relations, convent life, property . Stuttgart: Müller and Gräff, 1978, esp.p. 219.
• Scultetus, Johannes , D. Joannis Sculteti… Wund-Artzneyisches Zeug-Hauß / In Zween Theil divided: Which apart from the Latin / from the authoris brother's son / Mr. Johann Schultes… improved - and in many places increased… copy, in the German language translated… D. Amadeus Megerlin. With three perfect registers of all memorable things. Franckfurt: Gerlin, 1679 ( digitized version ).
• Stocker, Carl Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig , family chronicle of the barons of Gemmingen: with three lithographed plates . Heidelberg: Stocker, 1895 (printer: Heilbronn: Schell), p. 345.