herbwife & history, part IX, I think
Dec. 5th, 2006 12:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyjadwigaIf we demolish the feminist ideal of the herbalist-witch-healer, we can replace it with a larger more diverse idea of healers, based on the historical record.
Even if we restrict ourselves only to female practicioners, there may not have been many, but they were fairly diverse.
Nancy Siriasi, author of Medieval & early Renaissance medicine : an introduction to knowledge and practice has this to say:
"Women as well as men practiced medicine and surgery; as with their predecessors in the Roman empire, women's practice was limited neither to obstetrical cases nor to female patients. For example, the names of 24 women described as surgeons in Naples between 1273 and 1410 are known, and references have been found to 15 women practitioners, most of them Jewish and none described as midwives, in Frankfurt between 1387 and 1497...
Even in the twelfth century, however, the accomplishments of Trota and Abbess Hildegard were highly unusual. Once university faculties of medicine were established in the course of the thirteenth century, women were excluded from advanced medical education and, as a consequence, from the most prestigious and potentially lucrative variety of practice. Furthermore, it deserves to be emphasized that although women practitioners existed in many different regions of Europe between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries, they represent only a very small proportion of the total number of practitioners whose names are recorded-- according to one estimate, about 1.5 percent in France and 1.2 percent in England. It is probably that many more women may have engaged in midwifery and healing arts without leaving any trace of their activities in written records; but this in turn may imply that such women are likely to have clustered in the least prosperous sector of medical activity, or to have been part-time or intermittent practitioners." -- Siriasi, p. 27
Women surgeons often specialized in the delicate work of cutting cataracts, since it required less brute force. Women were allowed to practice as members of the apothecary guild if they were widows of guild members. Herbalists-- that is, those who gathered and sold herbs in the markets, to apothecaries and physicians-- could be of either sex.
Midwives were almost exclusively female, but their duties varied from the simple ones now associated with the doula to more complex situations. In a number of cities, the town took steps to regulate the practice of midwives directly, through panels of high-ranking or high-status women who would examine and certify midwives as competent. By the seventeenth century, a number of cities actually had guilds-- in London, apprentice midwives had to serve seven years with a senior midwife before being allowed to practice on their own.
Dame Trota, a possibly apocryphal figure, is the most famous of the women university physicians. It is said that she practiced at the University of Salerno, along with a number of other female medical scholars referred to as 'the Salernitarian Women'. A number of writings have been attributed to Trota, specifically those gathered together in the collections referred to as the _Trotula_.
Some historians claimed that all the texts in question were written by men and merely attributed to Trota; however, another extant general medical work by Trota was identified by John Benson. Monica Green advances a compelling argument that at least one of the Trotula texts was in fact written by a woman physician, though perhaps not Trota herself.
Some women were licensed as doctors or medical professionals in various states, and various writers have claimed that a few women attended medical school in period. In cases where women healers were licensed, the historians perceive a blurring between the status of physicians and licensed healers. For instance, in Naples, and in Florence, and even in Valencia (before 1329) women could be licensed as 'medica' during certain historical periods. Still, women almost never attended Universities to begin with.
It's certainly true that male physicians, University-trained, tried to get control over all other medical practitioners; but everything I've read of modern scholarship suggests the struggle was a labor issue rather than a religious one. As university-trained physicians became more common, Colleges of Physicans used their influence with their wealthy patrons and with town aldermen to get laws passed giving them supervision over what they called 'empirics,' non-scholarly medical practioners. Over time, they gained control and oversight over guilds of surgeons, apothecaries, and even midwives in cities, and tried legislate away those they couldn't control.
Curiously enough, physicians in those days used techniques we generally would see as holistic and/or unscientific: working from the theory of humors, they tended to prescribe diet and activity changes as well as bloodletting and purges; they also used astrology as a diagnostic and prescriptive tool. However, it's not a good idea to make too much of this, as some empirics used those techniques and theories as well, though treatment based directly on symptoms was also used. In fact, such theories were part of every person's medical knowledge. Everyone used herbs in their diet and for various home remedies, just as we use over the counter medicines today.
It's hard to tell how many empirics there were practicing at any given time, as most medical treatment was either given by relatives, employer's families, or other personal relations, and medical treatment was rarely a full-time job even for those who practiced outside their families. For women in particular, that obscures any records we may have of their practice, as they would appear as so and so's wife, daughter or widow in his tax assessments or legal papers, but their separate side businesses (spinster, brewster, webster, midwife) might not be mentioned in tax or legal papers.
This greater diversity of practitioners is reflected in children's books such as those by Karen Cushman (The Midwife's Apprentice and Matilda Bone).
Even if we restrict ourselves only to female practicioners, there may not have been many, but they were fairly diverse.
Nancy Siriasi, author of Medieval & early Renaissance medicine : an introduction to knowledge and practice has this to say:
"Women as well as men practiced medicine and surgery; as with their predecessors in the Roman empire, women's practice was limited neither to obstetrical cases nor to female patients. For example, the names of 24 women described as surgeons in Naples between 1273 and 1410 are known, and references have been found to 15 women practitioners, most of them Jewish and none described as midwives, in Frankfurt between 1387 and 1497...
Even in the twelfth century, however, the accomplishments of Trota and Abbess Hildegard were highly unusual. Once university faculties of medicine were established in the course of the thirteenth century, women were excluded from advanced medical education and, as a consequence, from the most prestigious and potentially lucrative variety of practice. Furthermore, it deserves to be emphasized that although women practitioners existed in many different regions of Europe between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries, they represent only a very small proportion of the total number of practitioners whose names are recorded-- according to one estimate, about 1.5 percent in France and 1.2 percent in England. It is probably that many more women may have engaged in midwifery and healing arts without leaving any trace of their activities in written records; but this in turn may imply that such women are likely to have clustered in the least prosperous sector of medical activity, or to have been part-time or intermittent practitioners." -- Siriasi, p. 27
Women surgeons often specialized in the delicate work of cutting cataracts, since it required less brute force. Women were allowed to practice as members of the apothecary guild if they were widows of guild members. Herbalists-- that is, those who gathered and sold herbs in the markets, to apothecaries and physicians-- could be of either sex.
Midwives were almost exclusively female, but their duties varied from the simple ones now associated with the doula to more complex situations. In a number of cities, the town took steps to regulate the practice of midwives directly, through panels of high-ranking or high-status women who would examine and certify midwives as competent. By the seventeenth century, a number of cities actually had guilds-- in London, apprentice midwives had to serve seven years with a senior midwife before being allowed to practice on their own.
Dame Trota, a possibly apocryphal figure, is the most famous of the women university physicians. It is said that she practiced at the University of Salerno, along with a number of other female medical scholars referred to as 'the Salernitarian Women'. A number of writings have been attributed to Trota, specifically those gathered together in the collections referred to as the _Trotula_.
Some historians claimed that all the texts in question were written by men and merely attributed to Trota; however, another extant general medical work by Trota was identified by John Benson. Monica Green advances a compelling argument that at least one of the Trotula texts was in fact written by a woman physician, though perhaps not Trota herself.
Some women were licensed as doctors or medical professionals in various states, and various writers have claimed that a few women attended medical school in period. In cases where women healers were licensed, the historians perceive a blurring between the status of physicians and licensed healers. For instance, in Naples, and in Florence, and even in Valencia (before 1329) women could be licensed as 'medica' during certain historical periods. Still, women almost never attended Universities to begin with.
It's certainly true that male physicians, University-trained, tried to get control over all other medical practitioners; but everything I've read of modern scholarship suggests the struggle was a labor issue rather than a religious one. As university-trained physicians became more common, Colleges of Physicans used their influence with their wealthy patrons and with town aldermen to get laws passed giving them supervision over what they called 'empirics,' non-scholarly medical practioners. Over time, they gained control and oversight over guilds of surgeons, apothecaries, and even midwives in cities, and tried legislate away those they couldn't control.
Curiously enough, physicians in those days used techniques we generally would see as holistic and/or unscientific: working from the theory of humors, they tended to prescribe diet and activity changes as well as bloodletting and purges; they also used astrology as a diagnostic and prescriptive tool. However, it's not a good idea to make too much of this, as some empirics used those techniques and theories as well, though treatment based directly on symptoms was also used. In fact, such theories were part of every person's medical knowledge. Everyone used herbs in their diet and for various home remedies, just as we use over the counter medicines today.
It's hard to tell how many empirics there were practicing at any given time, as most medical treatment was either given by relatives, employer's families, or other personal relations, and medical treatment was rarely a full-time job even for those who practiced outside their families. For women in particular, that obscures any records we may have of their practice, as they would appear as so and so's wife, daughter or widow in his tax assessments or legal papers, but their separate side businesses (spinster, brewster, webster, midwife) might not be mentioned in tax or legal papers.
This greater diversity of practitioners is reflected in children's books such as those by Karen Cushman (The Midwife's Apprentice and Matilda Bone).
