CLA232H1 Lecture : Medical Writers Lecture Notes
Document Summary
Medical texts (like herodotus" histories) t ry to explain natural phenomena but they"re really always based on underlying assumptions and prejudices. Here, the descriptions of the sexes are supposed to be based on sex, not gender, but gender is always creeping in. Writers t ry to find a physis that proves and justifies nomos. Galen, 2nd c. ce (under the roman empire) Despite 700 year range, remarkably consistent opinions. Doctors were all male, though there were female midwives. Beginnings of medical science, competing with magic/charlatanism ability to explain woman"s body would give the field legitimacy. For all of them, women"s health = reproductive health: eg. hysteria is associated with the womb, not brain. General idea of the male body as normal, female body as abnormal/defective: female body needs explanation, is a scientific problem to be solved, female body is always out of whack in some way, pathological.
