Andrea Dworkin, Woman Hating (Dutton) 1974 pgs 134-139:

The Christians, of course, like Avis, trying harder, seeing in women the root of all evil, limited her to breeding more sinners for the Church to save. No wonder then that women remained faithful adherents of the older totemic cults of Western Europe which honored female sexuality, deified the sexual organs and reproductive capacity, and recognized woman as embodying the regenerative power of nature. The rituals of these cults...had been developed by women. Magic was the substance of ritual, the content of belief. The magic of the witches was an imposing catalogue of medical skills...The women who were faithful to the pagan cults developed the science of organic medicine, using vegetation, before there was any notion of the profession of medicine.

Paaracelsus, the most famous physician of the Middle Ages, claimed that everything he knew he had learned from 'the good women.'

Ibid, pgs 138-140:

"Eve's legacy was a twofold curse: 'Unto the woman He said: "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in pain thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."'...

The witches used drugs like belladonna and aconite, organic amphetamines, and hallucinogenics. They also pioneered the development of analgesics. They performed abortions, provided all medical help for births...Since the Church enforced the curse of Eve by refusing to permit any alleviation of the pain of childbirth, it was left to the witches to lessen pain and mortality as best they could. It was especially as midwives that these learned women offended the Church...