Famous Romanian women: Creator of anti-aging medicine, first female lawyer with PhD, first woman engineer in the world

After learning how few Romanian women are to be found in the high levels of politics and business nowadays – Romania-Insider.com wrote about it here, Guest Writer Mariana Ganea pursued the matter further back in history. She discovered that Romania has had, and still has, many great women, and that while a few of them are recognized all over the world, others are almost unknown. This week, she writes about the lives and works of five great Romanian women. Ana Aslan was a Romanian biologist and doctor, the creator of the Gerovital H3 medication, which seemingly helped prevent premature aging and the physical effects of aging. She was born in 1897 in the city of Braila, an important port on the Danube in the historical region of Muntenia, Eastern Romania. In 1915 she took her degree in medical sciences and in 1949 she became the head of Romania's Geriatric Institute, which was recognized by the World Health Organization. Through her career she treated many famous names of the 20th century, including J.F. Kennedy, Adenauer, Pablo Neruda, Salvador Dali, Charlie Chaplin, Aristotle Onassis, Charles De Gaulle and Marlene Dietrich. Her medicine and the Aslavital anti - aging treatment method made her famous all over the world and brought the Romanian state millions of dollars a year. She also developed an anti aging cosmetic line for skin, hair and eyes, made from natural plant extracts.Her research activity received many international distinctions, such as Cross of Merit – First Class of the Order of Merit (Germany, 1971 ), Cavalier de la Nouvelle Europe(Italy, 1973 ), Les Palmes Academiques (France, 1974 ), Honorary Foreign Citizen and Honorary Professor of Sciences,(Philippines, 1978 ), Member Honoris Causa Diploma of the Bohemo-Slovakian Society of Gerontology (1981 ) and Leon Bernard Prize, granted by the World Health Organization (1982 ). She is one of the many Romanian women known both to Romanians and to the rest of the world. Sarmiza Bilcescu's name, on the other hand, is less known, at home and abroad. But she was the first female European lawyer with a PhD in Law. She was born in Bucharest in 1867. Despite facing a lot of barriers because she was a woman, she took her degree in 1887 and the PhD in Law in 1890 in Paris at the Faculty of Law. Her thesis was titled On the Legal Condition of the Mother. She was admitted to the bar of the Ilfov County ( the county that surrounds the capital Bucharest) but because of the social conditions of those times, she never practiced law. She also created a committee presided over by Queen Mary which in 1915, unsuccessfully campaigned in favor of offering supplementary education to women who were denied access to higher learning. HaricleaDarclee'