Marie Meurdrac

Marie Meurdrac was a French chemist and alchemist known for writing La Chymie Charitable et Facile, en Faveur des Dames [Easy Chemistry for Women], a treatise on chemistry aimed at common women. It is through this book that her name has survived to the present day, and scholars have argued that this was the first work on chemistry or alchemy by a woman since that of Maria the Jewess in the late classical period. Historian Lucia Tosi described Meurdrac as the first woman to publish a book on early chemistry. Though she was reluctant to write, concerned about criticism from those who didn't believe women should receive an education, she was a proto-feminist, and believed that "minds have no sex."