Women and the Practice of Medical Care in Early Modern Europe, 1400-1800 [Hardcover]

Women have engaged in healing from the beginning of history, often within the context of the home. This book studies the role, contributions and challenges faced by women healers in France, Spain, Italy and England, including medical practice among women in the Jewish and Muslim communities, from the later Middle Ages to approximately 1800.Acknowledgements Introduction The Medieval Contribution New Medical Regulations and their Impact on Female Healers Early Modern notions of Women: Contradictory Views on Women as Healers Medical Treatises and Texts written by Women and for Women Female Midwives and the Medical Profession The Healing Care of Nurses The 'Irregular' Female Healer in Early modern Europe: a Variety of Practitioners Motherly Medicine: Domestic Healers and Apothecaries The Wise-Woman as Healer: Popular Medicine, Witchcraft and Magic Epilogue Bibliography Index

'Given the work's broad scope, which encourages readers to think about wider developments over time and across Europe, it is a fine book to assign undergraduates and a handy reference guide for more advanced scholars.' -Social History of Medicine

LEIGH WHALEY?Professor of European history at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada. Her research interests range from the French Revolution to Women, Gender and Science and Medicine. She has published books on Napoleon, the French Revolution and a History of Women in Science. Her most recent publication, Clandestine Operations: Odette Sansom and Andr?e Borrel, Exemplary Agents of the Special Operations Executive, appeared in Les femmes face ? la guerre (French and Francophone Women Facing War), edited by Alison S. Fell (Peter Lang, 2009). She teaches courses in Western Civilization, European Men and Women, and Comparative Revolutions.